Natural Resources

"At the rim of the Arctic Circle in Canada, gold mining firm Agnico-Eagle is learning how tough it is to operate in a remote region with temptingly large, but frustratingly inaccessible, reserves of oil, gas and minerals. Commentators rarely mention nightmarish logistics, polar bears and steel-snapping cold when they confidently predict that as the Arctic warms up, melting sea ice and shorter winters will open up the expanse to exploration."

"The State Department gave a crucial green light on Friday to a proposed 1,711-mile pipeline that would carry heavy oil from oil sands in Canada across the Great Plains to terminals in Oklahoma and the Gulf Coast."

"STOCKHOLM — Population growth and water stress are driving Earth to a food and environmental crunch that only better farming techniques and smarter use of the ecosystem will avert, a UN report issued on Monday said."

"In December, the Interior Department will hold the first oil and natural-gas lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico since last year’s massive oil spill that devastated the region."

"Seattle is the home of the U.S. Coast Guard's entire fleet of polar-class icebreakers.

Both of them.

Capt. George Pellissier commands both the Polar Sea and the Polar Star. He has spent much of his career on these ships, which were built in Seattle in the 1970s.

"CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Appalachian residents support strengthening Clean Water Act restrictions on mountaintop removal and would punish at the ballot box public officials who work to weaken strip-mining regulations, according to a new poll released Tuesday."

The Obama administration has for the first time recommended setting aside as wilderness a key part of the Arctic National Wildlife refuge known as the 1002 Area. But the chance of action on the recommendation by the current Congress is considered remote.

"CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- West Virginia regulators should examine whether hundreds of additional abandoned coal mine sites need new water pollution treatment under a legal settlement announced last week, a member of a Department of Environmental Protection advisory committee said Wednesday.

Mining engineer John Morgan urged the Special Reclamation Fund Advisory Council to look into the matter in the wake of a deal between DEP and the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy to set pollution discharge limits at certain abandoned sites.