Public

"Federal regulators voted [Aug. 13] to impose tough new restrictions on the commercial longline fishing fleet in the Gulf of Mexico in an attempt to protect marine turtles."

Should Mt. St. Helens, which erupted almosty 30 years ago, be a National Park? There is a debate over whether the land should be used for recreation or to study how landscapes recover from violent disturbance.

"The first hurricane of the Atlantic season loomed far out in the ocean Tuesday, gaining power and moving on a track that forecasters said could take it close to Bermuda by the end of the week."

"Glaciers on the iconic Teton Range are shrinking, researchers say, joining a growing list of glaciers in North America and beyond that are losing their surface area and potentially reducing the water supply for nearby regions."

Pablo Fajardo is the David to the oil Goliath Chevron Texaco. He represents about 30,000 Ecuadorians in a class action suit trying to clean up the oily mess in their part of the Amazon. The case, filed in 1993, goes back as far as 1964, when the U.S. company Texaco began oil exploration there. The suit alleges that Texaco dumped 18.5 billion gallons of 'produced water' -- which can contain dissolved inorganic salts, dispersed oil droplets and dissolved oil; treatment and workover chemicals; dissolved gases, particularly hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide; and bacteria and other living organisms.

"Man made levees line the banks of the Mississippi River and its tributaries. They protect towns and they allow farmers to plow the bottomlands. But levees come at a price: habitat destruction and worse flooding downstream. Now, more people are calling for taking down levees and returning floodplain areas to their natural state."

One resident says the Little Pee Dee River is unsafe for swimming because of fecal coliform bacteria from hog farming.

"CORPUS CHRISTI -- A fire last month at a local Citgo refinery has focused attention on what is likely the most dangerous chemical used in the refining process."

"As the hot days in Texas get even hotter, it may just be too much for some birds and fish. From the American goldfinch to the gray snapper, some species have been moving north for years, searching for cooler ground. And their quest may someday lead them to migrate out of the state -- forever -- especially if climate change continues to make Texas warmer, as predicted."

"Eighteen cattle likely died of selenium poisoning near a southeastern Idaho phosphate mine, the latest livestock deaths in a region rich in phosphates where a legacy of pollution has killed horses and hundreds of sheep since the 1990s."