There's a bit of irony in erecting a shady trailside rest area to honor Jack Fraser.

The harshest critics of environmental groups that work with federal agencies to plan forest-thinning projects typically are other environmental groups.

Scottsdale could establish a new Office of Environmental Policy to research and oversee "green" programs and handle federal environmental mandates.

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration declared a public health emergency for the entire Gulf Coast on Wednesday, pledging an unprecedented rescue-and-relief response to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. They rushed food, medicine and water to victims.

Two Valley companies have agreed to pay fines to settle environmental cases.

You don’t have to embark upon a major renovation or build a new home to go green. There are small steps you can take to live a life more at one with the environment around you. We picked the brains of the staff at a.k.a. Green in Scottsdale, a green building store and resource, as well as scouring the Web sites of the Environmental Protection Agency and Energy Star to find 10 easy and cheap ways to start living greener.

You don’t have to embark upon a major renovation or build a new home to go green. There are small steps you can take to live a life more at one with the environment around you.

Scottsdale is scoring points with federal regulators for going above and beyond the call of duty in some of its environment-friendly efforts.

WASHINGTON - Hurricane Ike's winds and massive waves destroyed oil platforms, tossed storage tanks and punctured pipelines. The environmental damage only now is becoming apparent: At least a half million gallons of crude oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico and the marshes, bayous and bays of Louisiana and Texas, according to an analysis of federal data by The Associated Press.

Mesa is the only city in Maricopa County with a dedicated particulate pollution control program, according to local environmental guardians Valley Forward.

ALBANY, N.Y. - Advanced drilling techniques that blast millions of gallons of water into 400-million-year-old shale formations a mile underground are opening up "unconventional" gas fields touted as a key to the nation's energy future.

FLAGSTAFF — An environmental group sued two federal agencies Wednesday over a land management plan it says fails to protect the endangered California condor from lead ammunition.

State environmental officials received $2.3 million in federal stimulus dollars to clean up the mess left by underground storage tanks that leaked gasoline and other petroleum products into the ground.

A House committee approved a bill Wednesday that would waive environmental regulations for Border Patrol activities within 100 miles of any U.S. border.

The long-awaited Draft Environmental Impact Study on the potential effects of the proposed South Mountain Loop 202 Freeway extension — a project that would give the East Valley another artery to the Phoenix region’s west side — is now available to the public for review and comment.

Local environmentalists are teaming up to fight against the Loop 202 extension and a study released earlier in the year is feeding their cause.

Local environmentalists are teaming up to fight against the Loop 202 extension and a study released earlier in the year is feeding their cause.

The past two fire seasons have shown the devastating consequences of letting our Southwestern forests become overgrown. Now we're about to see the fiscal impact of this legacy of mismanagement, including a reduction of services and facilities that the public has come to expect on our national forests.

The front cover of the publication Forest Voice depicts the worst fears of environmentalists. The fall 2002 issue of the tabloid newsletter shows a caricature of President Bush holding a chain saw with a hillside of cut-off tree stumps in the background.

FLAGSTAFF — The federal government has agreed to consider whether a desert tortoise whose population has declined by half in the past 20 years warrants protection under the Endangered Species Act.

Arizona's forests will be made safer from devastating wildfires under legislation signed Wednesday by President Bush, members of the state's congressional delegation said.

A Mesa man arrested Saturday on suspicion of making a highly lethal substance in his bathroom told federal and local authorities he wore a small vial of the deadly biotoxin ricin around his neck to protect himself and to poison anyone who attacked him.

GRANTS PASS, Ore. - Until now, anyone who wanted to know how many wolves, skunks or even robins that hunters for the U.S. Department of Agriculture shot, poisoned or snared across the nation could look it up on an agency Web site.

WASHINGTON - Animals and plants in danger of becoming extinct could lose the protection of government experts who make sure that dams, highways and other projects don't pose a threat, under regulations the Bush administration is set to put in place before President-elect Barack Obama can reverse them.