Environment

The 2012 "fire season" will officially begin at 8 a.m. Monday, and fire officials urge residents, especially those living or recreating in rural areas, to use caution.

California researchers have discovered that there may be a silver lining to an invasive and toxic seaweed that is killing some of Hawaii's coral reefs: It seems the seaweed contains compounds that could treat human diseases.

It doesn't take a botanist or even a nature nut to identify yellow star thistle along a favorite hiking trail. Every outdoor enthusiast has felt the familiar stab of introduction.

The California Public Utilities Commission on Thursday increased the number of rooftop solar installations that will qualify for credits by clarifying the way its net energy metering program is capped.

After four years of digging, the concrete has begun flowing at Folsom Dam to construct a new flood control spillway.

Gov. Jerry Brown tucked provisions into his budget that would limit payouts in wildfire liability cases, potentially saving timber companies and other major California landowners hundreds of millions of dollars as federal prosecutors pursue record-high damages in court.

The state of California sued the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Wednesday to fight rules that could eliminate trees on levees in Sacramento and statewide.

The Kern County sinkhole in which a Chevron oil worker died last June was in an area with spills and seeps dating back to the mid-1990s – about a year after oil producers started using a controversial kind of injection drilling there, state regulators said in a report released Monday.

Two U.S congressmen – one a Republican, the other a Democrat – are calling for a congressional investigation of the federal government's wildlife damage control program.

On the eve of a series of public hearings on hydraulic fracturing, a controversial but little-regulated method of oil extraction in California, an industry group said Tuesday that its members will voluntarily post information about their "fracking" operations on a disclosure website, Frac Focus, likely by the end of June.

The final draft of a plan to restore the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta was released for public review Monday.

The U.S. Forest Service has scheduled informational meetings Wednesday and Saturday for people interested in volunteer opportunities in Desolation Wilderness.

Effie Yeaw Nature Center in Carmichael will host a display of prize-winning nature photography during weekends in May.

Concerns that area rivers will flow high in winter and that extreme weather events will result in floods were on the minds of 50 people who gathered Saturday morning at the Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area levee as part of a worldwide demonstration.

This week is Wildfire Awareness Week, and officials are urging homeowners to prepare for what could be an early, and challenging, wildfire season.

Like many ranchers, Bill Jensen drives a pickup, shoots a high-powered rifle and loves to talk about sheep, cattle and the outdoors. But unlike many ranchers, he no longer relies on the federal government for predator control.

A draft plan for a massive Delta water diversion will not be completed by the end of June as expected, state officials announced Friday.

An eight-mile stretch of Scott Road will be closed to vehicle traffic Sunday so that bicyclists and walkers can enjoy some of the prettiest country in Sacramento County.

Activists plan to stage two demonstrations Saturday to highlight the potential for climate change to increase flood risk in the Sacramento region.

A second bird of the 2012 season has tested positive for West Nile virus in the Sacramento region, and officials warn that warm weather will amplify the virus in the area.

The drilling fields of Kern County shook long before the earth collapsed last summer, swallowing Chevron oil worker Robert David Taylor.

The federal government's wildlife damage control program is based on outdated science and indiscriminate tools that kill many non-target animals, including protected species, according to a lawsuit filed Monday by WildEarth Guardians, a Colorado-based environmental group.

Schoolchildren watched closely as water flowed from a rooftop gutter and trickled down a chunky copper chain and into a garden bed of plants.

A stretch of 55 new wind turbines that will supply energy for 44,000 customers of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District are up and spinning in Solano County.

Here, in rugged terrain owned by the American public, a little-known federal agency called Wildlife Services has waged an eight-year war against predators to try to help an iconic Western big-game species: mule deer.

A Bee investigation has found Wildlife Service's practices to be indiscriminate, at odds with science, inhumane and sometimes illegal.

A federal judge in Sacramento on Friday cleared the way for a trial against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over its policy banning trees on levees in California.

Goodbye, farm. Hello, subdivision. Despite talk of smart growth, urban Sacramento didn't check its sprawl in the past 10 years, but ballooned instead, spreading out at a faster pace than in decades past, according to a Bee analysis of new census figures.

The Sacramento Air Quality Management District's Check Before You Burn program starts today