Desert Environmental News, April 28 2025

Santa Cruz County Sheriff David Hathaway said the Trump administration’s plan calls for 1,800 truckloads of wall construction materials to be picked up in Benson and driven across Eastern Santa Cruz County to a staging area near Lochiel.

Advocates from across the Navajo Nation gathered in front of the nation’s council meeting hall Monday, hoping to tell Navajo President Buu Nygren how frustrated and disappointed they are by his abrupt endorsement of Donald Trump’s executive order

Hobbs vetoes Arizona small modular nuclear reactor veto bill that would have exempted unproven technology from environmental review

A fossil from one of the largest dinosaurs to live in North America was discovered in a national park in Texas.

McDonald Observatory astronomers worked with energy companies to dim their lights.

DAMN is supported entirely by people who think the desert is worth defending. Are you one of them?

The UCLA study says Utah trails other Colorado River Basin states when it comes to cleaning and reusing wastewater. Propping up the Great Salt Lake, however, complicates things.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that the environmental review allowing the program to operate on Nevada’s federally protected wilderness areas was deficient.

AB 1016 would expand local permitting authority for power plants, while AB 1031 addresses hazardous waste regulations.

A new report from the American Lung Association shows that Phoenix's ozone problem is worsening, while its particulate pollution remains high.

Once thought resistant to invasion, regional deserts are losing native plants to aggressive weedy species like Saharan mustard. UC Riverside research shows its spread is disrupting biodiversity and reducing the desert’s ability to recover from extreme climate swings.

A government hunter mistakenly killed a Mexican gray wolf that was expected to give birth to pups soon, according to federal records associated with the April 14 incident.

The Utah Lake Authority hopes to improve public opinion and correct misconceptions of Utah Lake through its new Utah Lake is My Lake awareness campaign.

Saguaro National Park West will grow by 47 acres after the Trust for Public Land (TPL) acquired land in the foothills of the Tucson Mountains, according to a press release.

An Oro Valley family is hoping people check their saguaros after their neighbor's cactus fell onto their property, crushing their cars.

Two Indigenous food educators showcased the abundance of the Sonoran Desert during a tour for the Society of Environmental Journalists conference.

Some of the oldest civilizations in North America say is the use of wastewater in snowmaking is a violation of their spirituality and health.

Some activists think the Trump administration's public lands initiatives — including a new review of a national monument's boundaries near Tucson — face an uncertain future

The Trump administration cut tens of thousands of jobs across the federal government in February, and reinstated many of them in March. On April 18, a federal judge ordered the administration to co…

Researchers at the University of Utah recently published a first-of-its-kind study that measures the impact dust has on melting snow in the Colorado River basin.

“We’re all connected,” said Ka-Voka Jackson. “This isn’t just about skiing. It’s about life, about healing places being destroyed.”

Tallgrass Energy’s proposed hydrogen pipeline would stretch from New Mexico to north of Flagstaff, following an existing Navajo-owned pipeline.

Buying up rights from farmers can help the state.

“Heat is extremely complex and it's extremely deadly,” said Arizona Republic reporter Joan Meiners.

The number of conifer trees dying in New Mexico’s forests from bark beetle attacks more than doubled last year to 70,000 acres, especially near burn scars left by wildfires in