California

"Pollution from illegal marijuana farms deep in California's national forests is far worse than previously thought, and has turned thousands of acres into waste dumps so toxic that simply touching plants has landed law enforcement officers in the hospital."

"The biggest gas storage facility in the West resumed operations Monday, nearly two years after a blowout led to the nation’s largest-known methane release and drove thousands of families from their Los Angeles homes."

"There is a man among us who talks to the bees. They spoke recently on a warm Sunday morning in my driveway. Nick Wigle was standing with his hands on his hips, squinting down at a small gas-meter vault packed with 3,000 stinging residents. “All right, guys,” he said. “We’re going to take this nice and easy.” The hive buzzed back, its low tone telegraphing the gentleness unique to Santa Barbara's bees."

"The same communities that fought for decades to protect California’s coast from offshore oil drilling have renewed their battle calls as the Trump administration considers opening 3,500 square miles of state waters to energy development."

"State utility and gas regulators ignored a top gas manager's warnings about the risk of earthquakes to aging wells at the Aliso Canyon gas storage field when they okayed it to resume operations, Los Angeles County said Friday in court papers."

"A surging wildfire raced through California mountains and foothills west of Yosemite National Park on Wednesday, forcing thousands to flee tiny, Gold Rush-era towns, destroying 29 structures and wafting a smoky haze over the park's landmark Half Dome rock face."

"California's legislature passed a package of bills that extends the state's signature plan to address climate change by a decade, sending Governor Jerry Brown a cap-and-trade plan that uses market forces to cuts greenhouse gas emissions."

"California’s five-year drought made worldwide headlines as wells went dry and thousands of people were left without water. But many of those whose taps still flow face an even more insidious threat. The state estimates that 1.5 million Californians rely on drinking water that has violated health standards."

"Fishing and environmental groups sued the Trump administration [June 29] for concluding that Gov. Jerry Brown's (D) plan to replumb California's water system would not jeopardize key threatened species.

Brown wants to build two 40-foot-diameter tunnels buried 150 feet below ground to shuttle water around the ecologically sensitive Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, where the state's two main rivers meet before flowing to the ocean through San Francisco Bay.