California

"For 24 years, traveling across the stark and dusty moonscape of what once was a glimmering 110-square-mile lake framed by snow-covered mountains, Ted Schade was a general in the Owens Valley water wars with Los Angeles. This was where Los Angeles began taking water for its own use nearly a century ago, leaving behind a dry lake bed that choked the valley with dust, turning it into one of the most polluted parts of the nation.
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"They’ve gone to logging and housing — but especially to climate change, says a new study"

"Correct or not, perceptions of tap water as unsafe lead many poor immigrant families to make expensive and unhealthy choices."

"California farmers must restrict their use of a tear gas-like pesticide applied to strawberries and other crops under new rules designed to protect farmworkers and people who live, work and go to school near agricultural fields."

"Their beards have grown full. Their hair, greased with sweat and brushed only with mountain air, stands on end. Their fingers, raw and ragged from grasping at sharp crevasses in the stone, are bandaged and bleeding."

"Environmental advocates will lose an ally in Congress when Barbara Boxer leaves the Senate at the end of her term in 2016 after more than three decades in office."

"California broke ground Tuesday on its $68 billion high-speed rail system, promising to combat global warming while whisking travelers between Los Angeles and San Francisco in less than three hours."

"In an inaugural address drawing on his family's deep roots in California, Gov. Jerry Brown called for expansive new environmental regulations that would protect the state for future generations."

"A judge ordered Safeway to pay nearly $10 million to 41 California counties and cities for illegally disposing of household chemicals and medicines from its stores and distribution centers over a seven-year span."

"In the pesticide-laden Salinas Valley, the new year brings a new requirement for schools and licensed child care centers."