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Bettina Boxall

FILE - This undated image provided by the US Fish and Wildlife Service shows a gray wolf resting in tall grass. After Montana's wolf hunt failed to reduce the number of predators in the state, some groups and individuals are considering the added incentive of paying bounties for each carcass returned. (AP Photo/US Fish & Wildlife/FILE)

Court upholds Congress act that ended wolf protections

Last updated Thursday, March 15, 2012 - 10:51am

A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that Congress acted legally when it eliminated Endangered Species Act protections for the Northern Rocky Mountain population of gray wolves and opened the door to wolf hunts.

Congress, Endangered Species, Federal Court, Wildlife, wolf hunt, Wolves, Hunting, National Read more Comments

Forest Service to drop fees at most national forests

Bettina Boxall Los Angeles Times

Last updated Wednesday, February 29, 2012 - 6:25pm

The U.S. Forest Service plans to grant free access to nearly all national forest lands, scaling back unpopular recreation fees that have raised the ire of hikers but also sent millions of dollars to Southern California's heavily used forests.

Outdoors, Camping, Court, Fees, Hiking, National Forests, Outdoor Recreation, Public land, Recreation, U.S. Forest Service, Fishing, National Read more Comments

Genealogy of the West's landscape examined

Bettina Boxall Los Angeles Times

Last updated Sunday, February 12, 2012 - 8:30am

"ROUGH-HEWN LAND: A GEOLOGIC JOURNEY FROM CALIFORNIA TO THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS." By Keith Heyer Meldahl. University of California Press. $34.95.

Think of the West and what comes to mind are vertiginous peaks, sculpted tablelands and the infinite vistas of basin and range country. In other words, geology.

Westerners live in the shadow of mountains that are still rising, on the edge of a continent on the move, over fault systems that can unleash the power of nuclear bombs. More so than any other region of the country, we are defined by geology.

In "Rough-Hewn Land," Keith Heyer Meldahl takes us on a field trip from San Francisco to the Rocky Mountains, tracing the genealogy of the landscape. He seasons the story with historical accounts and a synthesis of evolving geologic theory, providing a fascinating guide to the formation of the West.

Features, Books, California, earthquakes, Geology Read more Comments

Wilderness Society cuts staff, citing weak economy

Bettina Boxall Los Angeles Times

Last updated Sunday, November 20, 2011 - 9:35am

The weak economy has taken a big bite out of the Wilderness Society, which last week laid off 17 percent of its staff.

Environment, Economy, Layoffs, Wilderness, National Read more Comments

A swimmer returns to shore, August 3, 2011, at Lake Powells Lone Rock Beach, where the beach retreated (and the water advanced) several hundred feet this year. (Bettina Boxall/Los Angeles Times/MCT)

Officials struggle to keep up with rising Lake Powell

Bettina Boxall Los Angeles Times

Last updated Monday, August 15, 2011 - 1:38pm

PAGE, Ariz. -- It was another morning of chasing the water at Lake Powell. Jeff Wilson strained to adjust a floating dock to keep up with the swiftly rising level of one of the nation's biggest reservoirs.

This was supposed to be yet another dry year on the Colorado River system, which feeds Lake Powell and sustains more than 25 million people and upward of 3 million acres of farmland. Some Western states even feared cuts in water deliveries were looming.

Instead, so much snowmelt and storm runoff flowed into the river and its tributaries that for much of the summer Powell rose a foot a day. The reservoir now is 76 percent full, and its surface has reached the highest point in a decade, dramatically shrinking the white bathtub ring of mineral salts that had ominously marked the lake's retreat.

Features, Colorado River, Lake Powell, Water Read more Comments

Dam operators on their toes as West snowpack melts

Bettina Boxall, Los Angeles Times

Last updated Tuesday, June 14, 2011 - 11:41am

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. -- On a June day, Frank Gehrke and Vince White strapped on their cross-country skis and glided across the wintry landscape of Dana Meadows in Yosemite National Park. The surrounding peaks were wrapped in snow, the breeze crisp enough for a hat and gloves.

The men screwed together four sections of a hollow aluminum tube White had carried on his backpack. With a vigorous twisting of a handle attached to the cylinder, he drove it into the layers of snow. It didn't hit dirt for another 7 feet.

After pulling up the snow-filled tube, White weighed it to gauge the water content. The Dana Meadows snowpack had enough water to form a 3-foot-deep lake.

From the Sierra Nevada and the Cascades to the northern Rockies, much of the West's high country remains buried under a thick snowpack that is filling reservoirs and engaging dam operators in a nerve-racking balancing act as they watch for jumps in temperature that could turn all those scenic piles of white into raging floodwaters.

Features, Flooding, Reservoirs, Rivers, Snowpack Read more Comments

Obama administration proposes new rules for national forests

Bettina Boxall, Los Angeles Times

Last updated Friday, February 11, 2011 - 11:01am

LOS ANGELES -- Federal supervisors would have to run the country's national forests to maintain ecological health and species diversity under a proposed Obama administration rule that also requires them to prepare environmental reviews when they update forest management plans.

The 94-page document is the latest version of a forest planning rule that has gone through a decade of revision and litigation as changing administrations left their stamps on it. It would shape the future of the 193 million-acre national forest system.

National Forest, Politics, National Read more Comments

Mountain vegetation moving to lower elevations despite climate change

Bettina Boxall, Los Angeles Times

Last updated Thursday, January 20, 2011 - 4:38pm

LOS ANGELES -- Predictions that climate change will drive trees and plants uphill, potentially slashing their range to perilous levels, may be wrong, suggests a new study that found vegetation in California actually crept downhill during the 20th century.

The research, to be published in Friday's issue of the journal Science, challenges widely held assumptions about the effect of rising temperatures on shrubs and trees that play a critical role in mountain environments.

Features, Climate change, Vegetation Read more Comments