Natural Resources

"The Pew Environment Group says the Grand Canyon is especially at risk. Critics of the mining say an 1872 law gives companies 'carte blanche.'"

"Wild rice is sacred to the Ojibwe of Minnesota, but that may not be enough to protect it from the promise of jobs that a new copper-nickel mining industry would bring to the state."

"To reach a lost American place, here just a moment ago, follow a thin country road as it unspools across an Appalachian valley’s grimy floor, past a coal operation or two, a church or two, a village called Twilight. Beware of the truck traffic. Watch out for that car-chasing dog."

"Beneath the lush, green hills of eastern Utah's Uinta Basin, where elk, bear and bison outnumber people, the soil is saturated with a sticky tar that may soon provide a new domestic source of petroleum for the United States. It would be a first-of-its kind project in the country that some fear could be a slippery slope toward widespread wilderness destruction."

"The U.S. Supreme Court [Monday] declined to hear an appeal from Kaiser Ventures LLC on an appeals court decision overturning a federal land exchange. The land deal would have allowed the world's largest garbage dump to be built on the boundary of Joshua Tree National Park."

The end of one Tsunami-hit Japanese whaling company could mean the end of a seaside town. In a variety of ways, the quake aftermath is transforming life in Japan. As the death toll mounts, power, water, and food are in short supply.