"All 29 ponds will be closed within three years. Ash from 16 ponds will go to lined landfills. Impermeable barriers will protect 13 other closed ponds."

"A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has denied the Te-Moak Band of Western Shoshone’s request for an emergency injunction to stop the destruction of an ancient trail in the Tosawihi Quarries, a 10,000-year-old sacred site."

"The worst oil bust since the 1980s is putting Texas and other oil producing states on the hook for thousands of newly abandoned drilling sites at a time when they have little money to plug wells and seal off environmental hazards."

"In an immaculate control room at the Watts Bar nuclear plant, green bars flash on a large screen, signaling something that has not happened in the United States in two decades."

"Wildfire warnings were posted across parts of three Western U.S. states on Sunday as a heat wave baked the region in record, triple-digit temperatures, stoking flames in California from the coastal foothills outside Santa Barbara to desert brush near the Mexican border."

"YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK -- President Barack Obama mixed business with pleasure here Saturday, touting the importance of national parks and then seeing one up close for himself as he took in the sights at what is arguably the crown jewel of the national park system."

"When beavers build dams, they create reservoirs that store water and replenish groundwater supplies."

"The company asks a federal court in Texas to block the investigation by Massachusetts prosecutors, citing its constitutional rights."

"The Senate Appropriations Committee [Thursday] approved 16-14 a spending bill for the Interior Department, U.S. EPA and the Forest Service after adding money for wildfire fighting and rejecting a Democratic attempt to strike a dozen policy riders."

"Fueled by hot and dry weather, wildfires threatened homes in California and other Western states as crews struggled to corral flames that have scorched miles of brush and timber."