"Kathy Omachi was eating at McDonald's in Reedley [Calif.] recently, and she counted 51 gravel trucks pass by -- all in the time she finished a hamburger and fruit smoothie. The lifelong resident of this farming town, which is southeast of Fresno and within a few miles of three rock quarries, fears that even more trucks, with their dirty exhaust, will be on the road if nearby mining is expanded."

"Environmentalists battling Canadian oil companies over the proposed Keystone XL pipeline to the Gulf Coast and another link west to Asia are now girding for what they see as industry's Plan C: Move heavy crude to the East.

At issue is a plan announced this week by Enbridge Pipelines Inc. to reverse the flow of a pipeline that now carries 240,000 daily barrels of imported oil west from Canada's East Coast.

"Free-market thinktank's conference opens in Chicago with president admitting defections are hurting group's finances."

"HELENA, Mont. -- A wildlife advocacy group is suing the U.S. Forest Service to seek the release of documents about how the agency plans to keep a disease that already has killed millions of bats in the U.S. and Canada from spreading to the Northern Rocky Mountains."

"A push by congressional leaders to fund an embattled uranium enrichment project in Ohio has triggered strong bipartisan backlash in the House and accusations that leading GOP figures are backing earmarks for a project with similarities to the bankrupt solar firm Solyndra."

"Climate change, with its associated melting ice caps and shrinking glaciers, is the usual suspect when it comes to explaining rising sea levels. But a recent study now shows that human water use has a major impact on sea-level change that has been overlooked."

"VANCOUVER -- Atlantic salmon farms around Vancouver Island have begun testing and formed a special outbreak management team after a virus outbreak at one farm led to a site quarantine and the cull of more than half a million fish."

"Large stretches of salmon-spawning streams and thousands of acres of wetlands would be wiped out if a large-scale mining project were to be built in southwestern Alaska's copper-rich Bristol Bay region, according to a report issued Friday by the Environmental Protection Agency."

"AUSTIN, Texas -- A Texas District Court judge Monday issued a letter announcing that he intends to rule against the state environmental agency's air permit for a proposed power plant in Corpus Christi."

"A new law in Pennsylvania has doctors nervous."