Environment

1353 Stories

Cleaner snowpack could help slow climate change, provide more drinking water

Researchers in the Northwest are studying dirty snow – and how cleaner snow could someday help with water resources around the world.
- Courtney Flatt
One man’s mission to save the California redwoods by bringing them to the Pacific Northwest

Coast redwoods and giant sequoias are iconic trees that tower over Northern California’s forests, but scientists are wondering if these trees will survive through a rapidly changing climate. It's leading some to consider a potential solution: moving the trees to the Pacific Northwest.
- Hans Anderson
- Diana Opong
Listen 17 mins
Pakistan is planting lots of mangrove forests. So why are some upset?

Pakistan is reforesting its river delta with mangrove forests nearly the size of Rhode Island. But why are some upset?
- Diaa Hadid
- Abdul Sattar
Listen 7 mins
How 'forever chemicals' got in the groundwater west of Spokane

Seattle Times reporters Isabella Breda & Manuel Villa talk with Soundside about PFAS chemicals in the drinking water near the city of Spokane.
- Jason Burrows
- Diana Opong
Listen 17 mins
The love story that grew Seattle's 'secret garden'

Since 1972, the Streissguth Gardens have become one of Seattle’s most unique landmarks. The gardens take up a full acre of hillside just west of Capitol Hill’s Volunteer Park. If you’ve spent a morning running up the long Blaine Street Stairs, you’ve passed right by the gardens. But the story of how this unorthodox public garden came to be is one of coincidence, love, and perhaps a bit of magic.
- Alec Cowan
- Diana Opong
Listen 14 mins
Tribal leaders support bringing grizzly bears to the North Cascades

Federal leaders are considering bringing grizzly bears back to the North Cascades. Some Northwest tribes say doing that would restore harmony to areas where their ancestors lived.
- Courtney Flatt
Invasive mussels inching closer to the Columbia Basin, federal report says more could be done to sto

Fast-spreading invasive aquatic mussels are hitching rides on boats, kayaks and jet skis. So, people are working to keep them out of the Columbia River Basin, the only major river basin in the U.S. without an established quagga mussel population.
- Courtney Flatt
What the new federal climate report says about the Northwest
- Rachel Cohen
Volunteers helping sagebrush, wildflowers grow where fires burned

After wildfires, it can be hard for native plants to come back. That’s why volunteers are planting them and spreading seeds this fall in southeastern Washington, helping sagebrush and wildflowers take root again.
- Courtney Flatt
Listen 2 mins
'Good bones' from old homes help build Seattle's future

When homes are demolished, that wood usually ends up in the dump. But now, an investment by the Environmental Protection Agency aims to get that old wood into new Seattle houses.
- Joshua McNichols
Listen 4 mins

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