environment

During the last two years, 50 percent of hives and 60 percent of the honey bee population in the United States has died due to what scientists are calling "colony collapse disorder".
Despite the severity of this crisis, there is no known cause for colony collapse disorder.

Last week, caffeine and prescription drugs were found in trace amounts in the drinking water of Portland and several other large metropolitan regions.

This week, the US Army Corps of Engineers has released information showing that industrial chemicals, known as PCB's or polychlorinated biphenyls have been found to be present in unsafe levels in bass caught near the Bonneville Dam.

The Associated Press is reporting that trace amounts of pharmaceutical drugs have found their way into drinking water in 28 out of 35 cities tested -- 80 percent of the communities surveyed.

A recent study by the USGS showed that major Oregon waterways, including the Willamette and Columbia rivers found detectable levels of caffeine, prozac, and tagamet.

"Thou shalt not pollute the earth", and "thou shalt not engage in genetic modification" are new sins of a new time, Archbishop Gianfranco Giotti, the Vatican's number to man said in an interview with the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano.

Reuters reports that the Vatican has outlined a series of new forms of social sin that includes ecological offenses, drug trafficking, and social and economic injustice.

More than 1000 Bison have been slated for execution in Yellowstone National Park, the most in the last 10 years.

The Bison kill is intended to reduce the risk of brucellosis being transferred from Bison to neighboring cattle. Although no cattle have been found to be infected by brucellosis, transferred by Bison, the kills have continued since 2000, even in areas where cattle no longer graze.

Approximately 4700 bison live in Yellowstone as of late 2007, the largest remaining herd in the world.

The Columbia Riverkeepers, a non-profit organization that seeks to protect water quality in the Columbia river is seeking $3.5 million in increased federal funding to monitor toxins in the lower Columbia river before the water reaches the Pacific Ocean.

The Oregon Zoo will soon release 3 captive-born California Condors into the wild, the Oregonian reports.