"The first mining claims have been staked in areas that were formerly part of Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument, after President Donald Trump issued an order in July shrinking it to less than 10 percent of its original size."
"The City of Reno and Truckee Meadows Water Authority (TMWA) broke ground last week on an Advanced Purified Water Facility, a plant that will treat roughly 2 million gallons of wastewater a day to make it compliant with drinking-water standards and send it into a groundwater aquifer near Stead Airport, a first for Nevada."
"New polling shows that two-thirds of registered voters in Utah support restoring protections for the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments."
"In recent years, public discourse on air quality in Utah has rightly focused on the dangers of wildfire smoke. Wildfire events across the Western United States have degraded air quality for days and weeks at a time. Yet, while headlines chase each new plume of smoke, a slower and arguably more dangerous crisis has been allowed to develop with remarkably little urgency: the drying of the Great Salt Lake and the toxic dust it is now releasing into the air that Utahns breathe every single day."
"The outdoor retailer Patagonia on Wednesday joined a lawsuit against the Trump administration over its executive orders to shrink the sizes of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah."
"A deadly flash flood in the Grand Canyon over the weekend was probably driven by a confluence of climate factors, including drought, wildfire scarring and warming temperatures in the Pacific Ocean that can supercharge storms."
"Yellowstone National Park and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks have announced the easing of fishing restrictions on rivers as water temperatures drop."
"Around 70,000 are expected be at the Nevada desert festival, with it urging attendees to treat “everyone affected by this emergency with patience and care.”"
"Undersecretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources and Environment Michael Boren, who oversees the U.S. Forest Service, asked agency staff last month to escalate the amount of aircraft at a seven-acre fire that had started near his mega-ranch in Idaho’s Sawtooth National Forest, according to two Forest Service officials familiar with the matter."
"The Trump administration move is “politically motivated,” said the plaintiff, one of the nation’s leading environmental gr�oups."
"One of the nation’s largest environmental groups is challenging the Trump administration’s closure of a leading climate institute, filing a lawsuit Thursday [Aug. 20] in federal court saying the closure is unlawful.
