"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approved an aquifer exemption for a coal gasification pilot project in Campbell County [Wyoming] this week, drawing criticism from landowners worried that the facility could contaminate a potential source of drinking water."
"Climate change could kill up to 90 percent of the forests covering the Rocky Mountains, warned the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists today in a new study based in part on projections made by the U.S. Forest Service."
"DENVER — Seeking to head off a costly election-year fight over oil and gas drilling that could threaten vulnerable Colorado Democrats, Gov. John W. Hickenlooper said Monday that he had reached a deal to keep two antifracking measures off November’s ballots."
"New herds of genetically pure wild bison may once again roam vast expanses of the American West where the iconic animal has been absent since the end of the 19th century, under a tentative plan federal officials advanced on Wednesday."
"A Boulder County District Court judge has struck down Longmont's fracking ban but said the ban can remain in place while the city considers an appeal."
"Twenty-one activists were arrested Monday during a "blockade" of a tar sands company’s construction equipment in eastern Utah, according to anti-tar sands groups who accused Uintah County sheriff’s deputies of 'brutality.'"
SEJ hosted two sessions at Investigative Reporters and Editors’ June 26-29, 2014 conference in San Francisco – one on the western drought and another on the oceans.
"Protesters gathered to illegally dredge for gold on Tuesday in an Idaho river where such mining is banned, in an open challenge to the U.S. government's authority to regulate public waters and lands in Western states, an organizer said."
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