Desert Environmental News, 2/17

Some visitors to El Paso’s open space preserves in Northeast and West El Paso are creating their own trails and damaging the lands meant to be preserved.

A dairy worker in Churchill County was infected with a new type of bird flu, state and federal health officials said Monday. It is the state’s first and only human case. The worker was exposed to infected dairy cattle while working at the farm.

A Nevada dairy was the first place a second strain of bird flu was discovered. How is it different from the first variant and are milk and eggs safe to consume?

The Trump administration has frozen Nevada’s $156 million solar panel grant.

Uranium has long been a concern for the Navajo Nation due to the history of mining, which has deeply impacted the land and community since the 1940s.

This unique site attracts visitors from around the world to Emery County and is a vital part of Utah’s cultural heritage.”

The Human Rights Watch claims the Bureau of Land Management failed to properly consult with affected Native American tribes in Northern Nevada.

As part of the Trump administration's push to expand U.S. energy production, federal officials will review and consider redrawing the boundaries of national monuments created under previous presidents to protect unique landscapes and cultural resources.

There were no horses in the trailer. Instead, it was filled with 20 bighorn sheep that, just 24 hours earlier, were roaming the Deschutes River drainage of central Oregon. After their capture in Oregon, they were loaded into the trailer to be released in Nevada.

Imperial Irrigation District defends its interconnection process as BHE Renewables puts its Lithium Valley geothermal projects on hold.

One of the nearly three dozen executive orders issued by President Donald Trump on the day of his inauguration last month is designed to halt the development of wind turbines. Why mining plans and land sales were also paused in the EO remains a mystery.

Some traditional Indigenous stories can only be uttered during the wintertime. A member of the Gila River Indian Community has been workshopping a new collaboration with the Great Arizona Puppet Theater that’ll bring old creation tales to life on Saturday.

For some, Ivanpah now stands as a huge, shiny monument to wasted tax dollars and environmental damage. For others, failures like this are a natural part of the race to find the winning solutions fo…

A scientist has discovered a hopping treasure trove—16 new species of grasshoppers living in the thorny scrubs of U.S. and Mexican deserts.

State health officials declared a measles outbreak in southeast New Mexico on Friday after two adults tested positive for the viral illness — bringing the total to three confirmed cases

Joe Lombardo wants to open up Nevada’s federal lands for housing. Assemblymember Sandra Jauregui said that’s only one part of the solution.

National Park Service officials announced on Friday that construction in Big Bend’s Chisos Basin area, initially scheduled for May, will now begin in July.

The lake could be finished as soon as 2033 if all goes according to plan.

Searchlight spoke with six experts about what the new administration could mean — for everything from Los Alamos National Laboratory to a possible return to underground detonations at the Nevada test site

A Department of Energy (DOE) proposed transmission corridor could make New Mexico a wind and solar energy powerhouse, but locals are concerned.

Letters sent to federal workers say they are being terminated "based on your performance." But workers told USA TODAY they had no performance issues.