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.
The states, territories, and Washington, DC, will share $37.4 million doled out through the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund. The grants, administered by the National Park Service, match funding provided by states and local entities, and are supposed to be used for local parks, recreation, and conservation projects.
"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.
"The Obama administration on Thursday will pump $100 million into a little-known program that is going a long way toward redefining Everglades restoration.
The money won’t go to build reservoirs. It will go to ranchers.
"Volcano Lake, Calif. -- The news is distressing: A cratering real estate market, tight-fisted banks unwilling to make loans and no appetite among elected officials to let go of a dime. So why are conservationists smiling?"
Western Wisconsin is in the middle of a sand rush -- as companies mine the silica used in hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to produce natural gas. The mining operations have stirred concerns about effects on land and groundwater and health impacts on nearby residents.
"The federal government and the West Virginia Coal Association want a judge to dismiss a lawsuit aimed at protecting Logan County’s Blair Mountain from surface mining and returning it to the National Register of Historic Places."
"The Obama administration [Tuesday] roundly denounced a proposal by Republican lawmakers that would release several million acres of protected public lands into local management plans, potentially opening them to timber harvests, oil and gas development, motorized recreation and other uses."
"Poverty in Appalachia is concentrated in the communities around mountaintop removal mines, and people living in those areas suffer greater risk of early deaths, according to a new scientific paper by a West Virginia University researcher."
"The National Park Service is proposing a rule that would allow American Indian tribes to remove plants and minerals from national parks for traditional uses, a break from a Reagan-era policy that barred such activities, according to a draft obtained by Greenwire."
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