Alaska and Hawaii

EPA has ordered Waste Management Inc. to clean upwaste and contaminated stormwater from a landfill that fouled Oahu beaches after heavy rains earlier this month.

"Formerly rare beak deformities are spreading rapidly among crows in southwestern B.C. and Puget Sound, according to researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey."

"To protect the declining population of the western Steller sea lion, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will restrict commercial fishing for Atka mackerel and Pacific cod, the animal’s main source of food, off parts of the Alaska’s western Aleutian Islands."

"Climate change is fanning longer- and deeper-burning fires in interior Alaska, changing the area from a carbon sink -- where planet-warming gases are stored naturally in the soil -- to a carbon emitter, scientists reported on Sunday."

"A national environmental group is threatening to sue over the federal government's oil spill emergency response plan for Alaska, saying regulators violated the law by not studying whether using chemicals to disperse oil spills would harm the state's endangered and threatened marine species."

"A federal appeals court has rejected a challenge to a U.S. EPA decision allowing Alaska to administer part of the Clean Water Act."

"The extensive pipeline system that moves oil, gas and waste throughout BP's operations in Alaska is plagued by severe corrosion, according to an internal maintenance report generated four weeks ago."

"Months after the funding was approved, state legislators still haven't decided how to proceed with a study of the proposed Pebble copper and gold mine."

"In a long-running legal battle between a Hawaiian community and the U.S. Army, a federal judge today ruled that the community has a right to know how live-fire military training in a nearby valley could damage cultural sites and marine resources."

"Alaska native corporations would lose their special contracting privileges under legislation that Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) intends to introduce next month, a move that will stir debate about the billions of dollars' worth of federal set-aside contracts that the companies receive."