Natural Resources

"Believe it or not, we use more of this natural resource than any other except water and air. Sand is the thing modern cities are made of."

"Local sheriffs would be a poor fit to replace Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service law enforcement officers, an Interior Department official said in a letter yesterday to House Natural Resources ranking member Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.)."

"STUTSMAN COUNTY, N.D. — Over the past few years, Neil Shook has watched his world burn acre by acre. 'I could tell something was happening,' Shook recalled, when he first noticed the plumes of smoke in 2011. By 2013, fires were raging every day, sending smoke billowing into the air — imagery that reminded Shook of Kuwait’s burning oil wells during the Persian Gulf War."

"A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has denied the Te-Moak Band of Western Shoshone’s request for an emergency injunction to stop the destruction of an ancient trail in the Tosawihi Quarries, a 10,000-year-old sacred site."

"YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK -- President Barack Obama mixed business with pleasure here Saturday, touting the importance of national parks and then seeing one up close for himself as he took in the sights at what is arguably the crown jewel of the national park system."

A proposed 42-inch natural gas pipeline through rural Virginia has torn Nelson County apart. A story of energy policy is told from the viewpoint of one woman whose beloved farmland is threatened by eminent domain.

Dust and emissions from an Idaho smelter left a legacy of lead poisoning among a generation of children near what is now a Superfund site.

"Conservationists are asking the White House Council on Environmental Quality to put the brakes on plans to allow a popular off-road, desert race from near Las Vegas to Reno to run through a newly established national monument in southern Nevada."

"More than one-third of the world's population can no longer see the Milky Way because of man-made lights."

"The Bureau of Land Management announced Monday that several parcels of land intended for oil and gas drilling in northwestern New Mexico will no longer be put up for bid at a leasing auction in October."