Articles by Grist staff

Why-oming

In a much-anticipated decision, the Wyoming Bureau of Land Management announced yesterday that it would approve the development of as many as 51,000 coalbed methane wells in Wyoming and Montana’s Powder River Basin. Although the BLM also called for a team of government representatives to monitor the air- and water-quality effects of the wells, environmentalists […]

Golden Brown

California is home to six of the 10 most polluted metropolitan areas in the U.S., according to national smog rankings released today by the American Lung Association. In fact, the top four areas were all in the Golden(Brown) State: Los Angeles-Riverside-Orange County, Fresno, Bakersfield, and Visalia-Tulare-Porterfield. Those rankings mask the fact that California’s air quality […]

Gone With the Flow

The Khasi Hills of northeastern India are one of the wettest places on Earth, typically experiencing torrential rains throughout the monsoon season and laying claim to the world record of 1,000 inches of rainfall in just one year. Now, though, the Khasi Hills are drying up due to environmental changes wrought by pollution, deforestation, the […]

Wow We

For the second time in the last two weeks, a major utility company has reached a settlement with the U.S. EPA to clean up its act under the New Source Review rules of the federal Clean Air Act. Last week, it was the Richmond, Va.-based Dominion Resources; now, it’s We Energies, a Wisconsin electric company […]