Ground Truth

November 16, 2020 — By Juliet Eilperin — The Trump administration is asking oil and gas firms to pick spots where they want to drill in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as it races to open the pristine … More

October 10, 2020 — By Anna V. Smith — In the early fall of 2018, Marina Anderson sped down the rough road connecting one side of Alaska’s Prince of Wales Island to the other. She had only a few … More

October 4, 2020 — By Laurel Wamsley and Scott Neuman — The Trump administration has cleared the way to open the country’s largest national forest to more development and logging. In a revised environmental impact study made public … More

September 28, 2020 — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposes eliminating about 205,000 acres in Oregon from the northern spotted owl critical habitat designation. The reduction would apply to Bureau of Land Management lands, where officials have … More

September 25, 2020 — “Timber Wars,” a podcast from Oregon Public Broadcasting, is now available online. The new podcast tells the story of how a small group of activists and scientists turned the fight over old-growth trees and … More

September 20, 2020 — By Guest Columnist Tom Spies — Spies is an emeritus scientist with the USDA Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest Research Station. He lives in Corvallis. The devastating wildfires in western Oregon have caused tragic losses … More

September 18, 2020 — By James Anderson and Matthew Brown — Justin Silvera came off the fire lines in Northern California after a grueling 36 straight days battling wildfires and evacuating residents ahead of the flames. Before that, … More

September 14, 2020 — By Joan Meiners — If you’ve spent any time in the west this summer, you’ve seen the skies fill with smoke from wildfires, prompting thousands of firefighters to be called to the front lines … More

September 10, 2020 — By Mary Forgione, Christopher Reynolds — With California menaced by fires and shrouded in smoke, state and federal officials have now closed 30 state parks, Highway 1 south of Big Sur and all of … More

September 3, 2020 — By Angus M. Thuermer Jr. — Gov. Mark Gordon signed an agreement Aug. 25 with the U.S. Department of Agriculture that gives the state more say in “active management” of national forests in Wyoming … More