The Obama administration announced plans to halt all new coal mining leases on federal public lands, the first revision of the federal coal program in nearly three decades.
A spike in radiation levels in soil around an active uranium mine just north of Grand Canyon National Park has led Arizona to suspend air pollution permit renewal applications.
You may have seen “Don’t bust the crust!” signs in national parks in the Southwest. Physical disturbances like these are as deadly to biocrusts as the clear-cutter’s saw is to an old-growth forest.