"Minnesota regulators on Thursday granted key permits to the long-planned PolyMet copper-mining project that’s opposed by environmentalists who fear it could someday foul waters, including Lake Superior."
As the Trump administration challenges wetlands preservation policy under the Clean Water Act, an important related practice has come into question. Mitigation banking — the creation or preservation of one wetland to offset the loss of another — has become a billion-dollar industry. But as this week’s TipSheet reports, the legal and regulatory tangle aside, wetlands permitting and mitigation continues, likely near you. Tracking the local story.
"The world's last remaining wilderness areas are rapidly disappearing, a report warns."
"The Interior Department’s internal watchdog referred its investigation of Secretary Ryan Zinke to the Department of Justice (DOJ) more than two weeks ago, just days before it was announced that Interior would be getting a Trump political appointee to replace its acting inspector general, two sources confirmed to The Hill."
"A Charlotte group focused on getting black people into the outdoors is coming to Hanging Rock State Park on Saturday. Outdoor Afro has a mission to create and inspire black people to connect with nature."
Long-standing tensions between hunting and conservation mean stories for environmental reporters, especially as hunting season gets underway. But as this week’s TipSheet points out, much hunting also takes place in one of the nation’s most protected habitats — its national wildlife refuges. A look at why, and where, plus a scan of the landscape of sources and resources to tell the story more richly.
"Alaska is in the midst of a divisive civil war over a ballot initiative that pits the state's revered wild salmon fisheries against its powerful oil and mining industries."
"The arrival of four federal investigators at Grand Canyon National Park this week reopened old wounds and threatened to topple a woman regarded by many as one of the top stars in the National Park Service."
"In the first such use of his executive powers, President Trump on Friday designated a national monument, establishing a 380-acre site in Kentucky to honor African Americans’ role as soldiers during the Civil War."
"While unusually poor returns of sockeye salmon plagued most other Alaskan waterways, state regulators are calling Bristol Bay "one of the bright spots" this season, with 42 million of the 50 million sockeye caught across the state coming from the watershed."
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