California: YSDI Preserves Yuba Habitat

Yuba Sutter Disposal, Inc. and the Ostrom Road Landfill are pleased to announce its alliance with Wildlands, Inc. to preserve and enhance over 200 acres adjacent to the Ostrom Road Landfill in southern Yuba County. The preserve, known as the Best Slough Mitigation Bank, will be the first vernal pool restoration/creation bank in Yuba County. Historic vernal pools will be restored and permanently preserved as habitat for endangered and threatened species.

Texas: First Couple Sees Progress in Effort to Reintroduce Native Plants

Native plant conservation is a great pastime for anyone who loves outdoor work, and it offers many environmental benefits. Native grasses are better for the soil, and they use less water than their non-native cousins. Wild prairies can include more than 100 types of grasses and forbs - and diverse prairies attract a more diverse array of wildlife. Central Texas wildflowers like the basket flower, for example, are an important food source for birds.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,325568,00.html

Minnesota: McLeod County Group Finishes Wildlife Restoration Project

A biting breeze blew across the frozen white landscape here. Most of the country is an endless expanse of plowed, snow-drifted farm fields - a seemingly inhospitable place for wildlife. But Mark Reinert and three friends stood in a field of golden prairie grasses and frozen wetlands - an oasis of wildlife habitat that they helped create in McLeod County. Just a few years ago, the 500-acre site was corn or soybeans or, in winter, black earth covered with snow. And there were no wetlands.

http://www.wctrib.com/ap/index.cfm?page=view&id=D8UBOJF00

California: Man-made Lagoon Connected to Sea

Workers opened a channel on Wednesday that connects a vast, man-made lagoon to the sea. If all goes as planned, the 45-acre basin, just west of Interstate 5, will become a thriving location for fish to spawn and birds and other wildlife to visit, project planners said. The basin is the centerpiece of the $86 million San Dieguito Wetlands Restoration Project. Southern California Edison, the majority owner of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, is paying for the three-year, 440-acre project to compensate for fish killed by the power plant's cooling system.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/01/24/news/top_stories/1_01_061_23_08.txt

Washington: Cost to Save Orcas Starts at $50 Million

That's assuming billions are spent to restore Puget Sound. Expressing "considerable uncertainty" about how to rescue Puget Sound's imperiled orcas, federal fisheries officials said Thursday that the job will take more than 20 years and cost about $50 million. Even that price tag considers only the extra costs of the National Marine Fisheries Service. The agency's recovery plan for orcas assumes that billions more will be spent to restore Puget Sound and bring back battered salmon runs -- orcas' main food.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/348700_orcas25.html

Mexico: Science Can Show the Way to Cleaner Mining
In 2010 the Mexican mining company Peñoles could be using a unique, more environmentally-friendly method for extracting gold and silver from ore -- but convincing the company to consider the new approach was not easy. The method, created by researchers at the public Metropolitan Autonomous University (UAM) here, involves an electrochemical reactor that would make unnecessary several steps in the conventional process of industrial mining. Furthermore, it is cheaper and does not generate waste.

Scientists Call For Urgent Research into 'Real' Impacts of Invasive Species

As well as drawing attention to the rising cost of invasive species on a global scale -estimated at US$1.4 trillion in damage - GISP stresses that too much emphasis has been placed on the problems faced by the agricultural sector in developed countries rather than in developing countries and on the "full range of environmental, social and economic costs." The report also emphasizes that due to the lack of knowledge and research available on the severity of individual pests and the options for best controlling them, policy makers are being left in the dark.

http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/30286

Hawaii: Mokapu Island Restoration Project to Begin
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources' Division of Forestry and Wildlife will begin work on the Mokapu Island Restoration project on or shortly after Jan. 30, depending on favorable weather conditions. The goal of the restoration project is to eradicate all the rats on the island to save the native seabirds and rare plants. Rats are known to kill and eat native seabirds and eat rare plants and their seeds.

http://www.molokaitimes.com/articles/8129155316.asp

Pennsylvania: Native Species get $1.2 Million Boost

Carnegie Institute, $70,300 to derive quantitative assessments of the distribution, abundance and habitat associations of breeding birds in Pennsylvania. Counts will be conducted at 13,000 randomly selected roadside sites. Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, $55,000 to conduct field and herbarium studies of rare and other significant plant species and their habitat; document occurrences of at least 60 plant species of special concern and evaluate their rarity status.

http://www.pennlive.com/sports/patriotnews/index.ssf?/base/sports/120130981416180.xml&coll=1

Antarctica: On Alert for Alien Invaders

Aliens are landing in Antarctica. Seeds, spores, mites, lichens and mosses alien to the continent have been brought unwittingly by scientists and tourists, and could disrupt life in the icy wilderness. Antarctica is best known for penguins as well as seals and whales, but scientists are finding a host of other tiny organisms from springtails -- closely related to insects -- to mosses.

And they fear global warming may create conditions suitable for outside marauders such as rats or mice in Antarctica, where the biggest land creature is now a tiny flightless midge.

http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/30092