California

"California officials have ordered an emergency shut-down of 11 oil and gas waste injection sites and a review more than 100 others in the state's drought-wracked Central Valley out of fear that companies may have been pumping fracking fluids and other toxic waste into drinking water aquifers there."

California, the producer of nearly half of the nation's fruits, veggies, and nuts, plus export crops—four-fifths of the world's almonds, for example—is entering its third driest year on record."

"In recent months, as California officials started to calculate the fire danger posed by the state’s prolonged and historic drought, they tucked an extra $23 million into the Cal Fire emergency wildfire budget for the fiscal year that began July 1, bringing its total to $209 million."

"Yosemite National Park, in California's Sierra Nevada, is celebrating the 150th anniversary of the law that preserved it — and planted the seeds for the National Park system. At the same time, the park faces the challenge of protecting the natural wonders from their own popularity."

"Frustrated beachgoers this summer will finally have a remedy against anyone who blocks public access to California's shoreline."

"San Francisco has big plans for Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, closed in 1974 and being cleansed of contamination by the Navy since 1991, but the city's largest piece of developable land remains a mystery to most."

"Developers citing new scientific evidence are pressing to end federal protections for the California gnatcatcher, whose status as a threatened species has barred development in many areas of prime Southern California coastal real estate for two decades."

"Officials in California are asking people to use less water because of the severe drought. But about a million people in the state live in homes without the best means of water-use management: meters."

Joe Rubin reports for NPR's Morning Edition June 26, 2014.

"The California drought is helping save the state's signature tree - the mighty oak - by slowing down the spread of the plague-like disease scientists call sudden oak death."