Gillian Flaccus

Associated Press

In this Oct. 28, 2019, photo, apples collected by amateur botanist David Benscoter, of the Lost Apple Project, rest next to his field notes and an apple picking pole in an orchard at a remote homestead near Pullman, Wash.

10 Extinct Apples Rediscovered

Turns out they were just hiding in the Pacific Northwest.

In this March 3, 2020, photo, a dam on the lower Klamath River known as Copco 2 is seen near Hornbrook, Calif.

Largest US Dam Removal Stirs Water Debate

The plan calls to demolish four hydroelectric dams.

This May 19, 2010, file photo shows a blue rectangular piece of microplastic on the finger of a researcher with the University of Washington-Tacoma environmental science program, after it was found in debris collected from the Thea Foss Waterway, in Tacoma, Wash.

Scientists Study Microplastic Pollution Risks

The largest of these plastic bits are 5 mm long, roughly the size of a kernel of corn.

In this April 23, 2018, file photo, Trevor Eubanks, plant manager for Big Top Farms, shovels dried hemp as branches hang drying in barn rafters overhead at their production facility near Sisters, Ore. Draft rules released by the United States Department of Agriculture for a new and booming agricultural hemp industry have alarmed farmers, processors and retailers across the country, who say the provisions will be crippling if they are not significantly overhauled before they become final.

Proposed US Hemp Rules Worry Industry

The government's heavy hand could result in many crops failing required tests and being destroyed.

In this Dec. 11, 2019 photo, Kevin Dunn, who fishes off the coasts of Oregon and Washington, holds a rockfish at a processing facility in Warrenton, Oregon. A rare environmental success story is unfolding in waters off the U.S. West Coast as regulators in January 2020 are scheduled to reopen a large area off the coasts of Oregon and California to groundfish bottom trawling fishing less than two decades after authorities closed huge stretches of the Pacific Ocean due to the species' depletion.

Fishery Rebounds in Rare Conservation 'Home Run'

A rare environmental success story is unfolding in waters off the U.S. West Coast.

In this Oct. 22 photo, E.J. Brandt and David Benscoter, amateur botanists with The Lost Apple Project, walk toward an orchard in the Steptoe Butte area near Colfax, WA.

Apple Detectives Comb US Northwest for Lost Varieties

A pair of amateur botanists are on a quest to find orchards planted by settlers as they pushed west more than a century ago.

A container at the Bodega Marine Lab in Bodega Bay, California holds hundreds of live purple urchins harvested from the Mendocino County coast where they have been decimating kelp forests. Tens of millions of voracious purple sea urchins that have already chomped their way through towering underwater kelp forests in California are now spreading north to Oregon.

Sea Urchin Spike Hurts Fisheries

The explosion of purple sea urchins is the latest symptom of a Pacific Northwest marine ecosystem that's out of whack.

In this file photo, a man displays hemp seeds being prepared for sale to industrial hemp farmers at his facility in Monmouth, Oregon.

Standards Hopefully Fix Hemp 'Mess'

"A lot of people say, 'Is your seed certified?' and there's no such thing as certified seed right now. There's no test, there's no oversight."

In this April 26, 2019, photo, medical marijuana cardholder Scott Donnelly, assisted by his wife and licensed caregiver, Vicki Poppen, leaves Western Oregon Dispensary in Sherwood, Ore., after buying medical marijuana to treat muscle spasms caused by his multiple sclerosis. Donnelly visits the medical-only dispensary once a week and relies on it for the cannabis that eases his tremors long enough that he can fall asleep. The dispensary is one of two medical-only shops left in Oregon.

Legal Pot Ups Cost of Medical Weed

States see a "massive exodus" of medical patients when they legalize marijuana for all adults — and then, in many cases, the remaining ones struggle.

Samples of hemp sit on a table in the conference room at Andrew Ross' office in Denver on Friday, March 22, 2019. Ross, a Marine who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, is facing 18 years to life in Oklahoma if he is convicted after he was arrested in January while providing security for a load of state-certified hemp from Kentucky. Federal legalization for hemp has created a quandary for police as authorities lack the technology to distinguish marijuana from agricultural hemp at a roadside stop.

Legal Hemp Challenges Police

The only way to distinguish between hemp and marijuana, which look and smell alike, is by measuring their THC.

In this photo, a U.S. Coast Guard boat crew responds to three fishermen in the water after the commercial fishing vessel Mary B II capsized while crossing Yaquina Bay Bar off the coast of Newport, Oregon.

3 Dead After Crabbing Vessel Capsizes

Coast Guard crews faced 12 to 14-foot waves as they tried to rescue the fishermen.

In this July 12, 2018, file photo head grower Mark Vlahos, of Milford, Mass., tends to cannabis plants, at Sira Naturals medical marijuana cultivation facility, in Milford, Mass. The legal marijuana industry exploded in 2018, pushing its way further into the cultural and financial mainstream in the U.S. and beyond.

Legal Marijuana Industry in 2018

With buzz building across the globe, the momentum will continue into 2019.