The Elwha River watershed on the Olympic peninsula has been transformed since dam removal a decade ago, but logging could harm the the habitat's progress. Washingtonians are rallying on Sunday to protect nearby forests. The Elwha River dam removal has been the largest in U-S history to date.

Elizabeth Dunne, director of legal advocacy for Earth Law Center, said forests in the region have come back to life, but at least six timber sales on state-managed land in the watershed contain legacy forests, or forests with many old growth characteristics. She said the forests also are important to Port Angeles.

"There's been some really strong community opposition, that's growing, to this logging particularly in the Elwha River watershed because the Elwha River supplies drinking water to the city of Port Angeles, which has about 20,000 people," Dunne said.

The Department of Natural Resources rejected a request from the Port Angeles city council last year to delay a logging auction, saying the agency is required to manage state trust lands to generate revenues for public services and infrastructure. On Sunday, people are rallying near an active timber harvest site in the region to protect these forests.

Opponents of logging in the region note only about 80,000 acres of legacy forests remain on state managed lands in Western Washington.

Brel Froebe, interim executive director of the Center for Responsible Forestry, said legacy forests play many vital roles.

"They are incredible tools to fight climate change," Froebe said. "They sequester and store more carbon than many forests in the entire world."

Froebe noted his organization does not want to stop logging, but pointed to Washington state's Climate Commitment Act, a law passed in 2021 aimed at helping reach the state's goal of reducing carbon emissions 95% by 2050 and with a focus on environmental justice. Froebe said protecting Elwha River watershed forests through this legislation could fund communities that rely on logging.

"We really want to make sure that this is a win-win and that rural communities shouldn't have to choose between sacrificing their precious ecosystems and funding things like schools," Froebe said.

On Sunday, rally goers are calling on Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz to stop the logging of legacy forests in the Elwha River watershed.

North Carolina's 220,000 acres of salt marshes face multiple threats to their major roles in climate protection and ecosystem health, from rising seas and salt water intrusion, to more frequent and intense storms.

To combat the challenges, the North Carolina Coastal Federation has released a five-year action plan, focused on protecting and restoring the habitat.

Jacob Boyd, salt marsh program director for the federation, said it is urgent to address ways to ensure the salt marshes are here for the next generation.

"The ecosystem and community resilience and climate change really go hand in hand," Boyd explained. "Because if we can protect and conserve some of these salt marshes and make those ecosystems more resilient, that's going to have those resilience impacts and benefits to the local communities, for flood protection and all the other benefits that salt marshes provide."

The plan outlined several preservation strategies, including promoting living shorelines instead of bulkheads, restoring marsh elevations and sediments and conservation efforts to allow for marsh migration. The plan is part of the larger South Atlantic Salt Marsh Initiative, an effort spanning the coastline from North Carolina to Northern Florida, aiming to preserve and enhance more than 1 million salt marsh acres.

Sarah Spiegler, coastal resilience specialist for the North Carolina State Center for Marine Sciences and Technology, highlighted the plan's role in fostering collaboration among a variety of organizations, governments and academia. She noted the "all-hands-on-deck" approach should help to address the environmental, social and economic challenges related to salt marshes.

"Salt marshes and issues like climate change, they don't fall within one jurisdiction or they don't stop at the county line, or they don't fall into just one agency's purview," Spiegler emphasized. "The fact that we are going to have all of these agencies and partners working together, we're just very fortunate here in North Carolina to put all of our heads together."

Spiegler pointed out the efforts build on others in the state, including Gov. Roy Cooper's Executive Order 80 and the state's 2020 Climate Risk Assessment and Resilience Plan.

She added the efforts will help bridge the gap between ecosystem resilience and community resilience in the face of climate change.


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A new report finds that climate change is affecting weather conditions in ways that increase wildfire risk, with the West seeing the greatest jump in fire weather days in spring and summer.

Climate Central found that parts of Utah are experiencing around three more weeks of fire weather days during the summer.

Kaitlyn Trudeau, senior research associate in climate science with Climate Central, said fire weather refers to the meteorological conditions that kick start the spread of fire. And with Utah being one of the states seeing more days with persistent hotter temperatures, lower relative humidity and stronger winds, it's something that Trudeau says is worrisome.

"When we look at which variables, what's really changing this, we're seeing that it is really relative to humidity. We're seeing a huge increase in the number of these really dry days. One of the main reasons for that is climate change. It is getting warmer, it is quite warmer, especially in the Southwest," she said.

Trudeau added that warmer air can hold more water, and that as the temperature increases, the atmosphere gets thirstier, which can then pull more moisture out of the landscape. As increasing influence of human-caused climate change increases, Trudeau contends humans need to rethink their impact on the environment, and wants the report to serve as a wake-up call and help people understand risks where they live.

The U.S. Fire Administration has a list of seven steps communities can enact in an effort to be more prepared. Trudeau added that other fire-adaptation strategies include increased use of land-management techniques such as prescribed burns that eliminate excessive fuels, but even those have become more of a challenge.

"And in order to do prescribed burning, you have to have a very specific set of weather conditions, and they're basically the opposite of fire weather conditions, because it is really dangerous to burn anything when you have really hot, dry, windy days," she added.

Trudeau said as the number of fire weather days increases, it also decreases the ability to do things like prescribed burning. She encourages people around the country to create defensible space around their homes, as well as creating toolkits and an evacuation plan in case of an emergency.


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As West Virginia leads a group of states in a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency's new emissions rules for power plants, a recent analysis highlights the voting records of the state's political leaders when it comes to environmental issues.

Jim Kotcon, chair of the West Virginia chapter of the Sierra Club, said the group's legislative scorecard shows nine state lawmakers consistently voted against environmental protection, with one even voting against their own leadership to take anti-environment stances. But he added, a surprising number of lawmakers have a strong track record for environmental protection.

"We were able to identify 10 legislators that had voted pro environment at least 80% of the time," Kotcon reported. "We think this is important information for voters and for constituents generally."

The scorecard includes votes on key environmental bills by all incumbent Delegates and Senators for the 2023 and 2024 legislative sessions. Bills were chosen based on roll call votes where a clear pro-environment position was identified, and where at least 5% of the chamber voted in opposition.

Kotcon added coal and gas bonding for mine or well reclamation continues to pose major environmental challenges to the region. Currently, companies are required to post a bond to ensure they reclaim their sites, but environmental advocates argued the bond amount, often less than $5,000, is not high enough, which can leave old gas wells and coal mine sites abandoned for years. He added state legislators have yet to address the issue.

"Unfortunately, the fossil fuel industry is strong enough in West Virginia that many of these very important bills to address very pressing public interest problems never even get to a vote."

There are more than 4,000 orphaned wells scattered across the Mountain state, along with hundreds of abandoned coal mine sites.


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