"A proposal to bring down four hydroelectric dams near the California-Oregon border cleared a major regulatory hurdle Thursday, setting the stage for the largest dam demolition project in U.S. history to save imperiled migratory salmon."
For a clean energy transition to succeed, it almost certainly will have to bring along displaced workers and communities. To help journalists understand the challenges underlying that shift, BookShelf’s Jenny Weeks reviews two volumes. The first is a new memoir of working in North Dakota’s booming Bakken oil fields, the second an earlier account of decline in a working-class community in Oregon.
Journalist Lyndsie Bourgon had covered timber poaching in the Pacific Northwest for over a decade when she decided to expand her scope, heading to the Peruvian Amazon to explore old-growth poaching there. In FEJ StoryLog, she shares the ups and downs of that project, made possible in part by a grant from the Society of Environmental Journalists’ Fund for Environmental Journalism.
"The Oregon House on Tuesday passed a bill to redirect funding from a tax-funded institute created 30 years ago to inform residents about forestry, after an investigation found that the organization sought to discredit scientists and acted as a lobbying and public relations arm for the timber industry."
"Oregon is considering ways to protect workers required to labor in extreme weather conditions, which are becoming more common in this age of climate change."
Climate change can mean doubling down on disasters, such as a combination of widespread power outages with the kind of extreme heat that kills. The latest TipSheet explores why such simultaneous disasters are so dangerous, where they’ve happened already, why they are increasingly likely to happen again and how to prepare to cover them in your area.
"Some Republican members of Congress from the Northwest are accusing a GOP Idaho lawmaker of conducting secret negotiations with the Democratic governor of Oregon over a controversial proposal to breach four dams on the Snake River to save endangered salmon runs."
"Oregon tribes are reintroducing a species that creates important habitat for First Foods. But the Beaver State's laws don't work in the animal's favor."
"An underground nuclear waste storage tank in Washington state that dates to World War II appears to be leaking contaminated liquid into the ground, the U.S. Department of Energy said Thursday."
"Endangered populations of humpback whales received extra protection Tuesday when the Biden administration issued a final rule designating critical habitat for the huge marine mammals across more than 116,098 square nautical miles of the Pacific Ocean, including most of the California coast."
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