Waterways and communities for miles around Idaho’s Bunker Hill mine were contaminated with lead after the 1973 fire.
gjohnstonphoto/iStock/Getty Images Plus
A fire and decades of silver and lead mining created the largest contiguous Superfund site in the nation in what today is one of the fastest-growing states. It includes popular Lake Coeur d’Alene.
Many ecologically important wetlands, like these in Kulm, N.D., lack surface connections to navigable waterways.
USFWS Mountain-Prairie/Flickr
In Sackett v. EPA, a suit filed by two homeowners who filled in wetlands on their property, the Supreme Court has drastically narrowed the definition of which wetlands qualify for federal protection.
Fires are increasing in high mountain areas that rarely burned in the past.
John McColgan, Bureau of Land Management, Alaska Fire Service
Fires here can affect meltwater timing and water quality, worsen erosion that triggers mudslides, and much more, as two scientists explain.
Members of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, protest an order to either socially distance or wear a face mask in public.
Geoff Crimmins/The Moscow-Pullman Daily News
A controversial pastor is aiming to convert a town of 25,000 people as part of grand expansion plans. A scholar says the congregation’s influence is growing.
Wildfires filled Seattle with smoke in September 2020.
Lindsey Wasson/Getty Images
New research found that smoke from the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, carried high concentrations of lead. An environmental toxicologist explains what else you’re breathing and how to stay safe.
Vice President Joe Biden enters a campaign event in Columbus, Ohio on March 10.
AP Photo/Paul Vernon
With the race for the Democratic nomination narrowed to Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, six more states went to the polls on March 10. We asked three scholars to interpret the results.
The Voting Rights Act offers language assistance for voters with limited English proficiency. What can we learn from an Idaho county’s experience offering foreign-language ballots?
NuScale Power aims to build the nation’s first advanced small modular reactor.
U.S. Department of Energy
Advanced small modular reactors, known as SMRs, will probably have many advantages over older technology. But it’s not yet known how they will stack up against other sources of electricity.
A surveillance photograph of Vicki Weaver at Ruby Ridge, 1992.
U.S. Marshal Service/Wikimedia Commons