"Life has returned to normal at the Bureau of Land Management's Gold Butte area in southern Nevada. Visitors are car camping, searching for prehistoric rock art and admiring the Mojave Desert's multi-hued landscapes -- and Cliven Bundy continues to graze his cows."
"Apart from water and air, humble sand is the natural resource most consumed by human beings. People use more than 40 billion tons of sand and gravel every year." There’s so much demand that riverbeds and beaches around the world are being stripped bare. The demand is so strong that islands are disappearing and organized crime often controls production."
"Yosemite National Park is bracing for its driest year on record, with visitor bureaus downplaying the allure of the park's most famous waterfall and instead touting the park as a destination for hiking, bicycling and photography."
"A Swiss billionaire is forging a conservation legacy across the western United States and having an outsized influence on federal policies."
In this, the second of two special SEJ TipSheets, the Advocate's Amy Wold provides you with a plethora of science-based information to cover the ongoing story of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, on the eve of the five-year anniversary. Photo: Officials assess sample processing and chain of custody protocol for handling specimens associated with the oil spill. Credit: NOAA.
April 20, 2015, marks the fifth anniversary of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, one of the largest environmental disasters in U.S. history. The story is far from over. If you are covering the legacy of the spill, SEJ is offering two special TipSheets by the Advocate's Amy Wold that will help you get the facts and background. Photo: Oiled endangered Ridley's turtle. Credit: Carolyn Cole/ LA Times; courtesy NOAA.
"After more than a decade of effort by California lawmakers, the Obama administration gave final approval Thursday to a giant expansion of two marine sanctuaries off the coast north of San Francisco that will protect one of the planet’s most prolific ocean ecosystems."
"CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin has signed a bill lauded by the struggling coal industry and called dangerous by the miners’ union."
After opposing gag and sealing orders in the trial of former Massey coal CEO Don Blankenship on charges of conspiracy to violate federal mine safety and health standards — and cover-up — a news media coalition led by Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press won access to the trial from a federal appeals court March 5, 2015.
"Last week, with little fanfare, PNC Financial, the nation’s seventh-largest bank, disclosed a significant strategic shift. The bank said it would no longer finance coal-mining companies that pursue mountaintop removal of coal in Appalachia, an environmentally devastating practice that has long drawn opposition."
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