Environment

Meanwhile, the state is relaxing walleye size restrictions for Lake Winnibigoshish in northern Minnesota.

Some of Minnesota's most active environmentalists are artists. Whether poets or performers, visual artists or musicians, their work consistently focuses on environmental ills.

The U.S. Department of Interior says the new recommendations have the potential to be one of the largest conservation measures "since Congress passed the visionary Wilderness Act over 50 years ago."

Extreme heat events caused by climate change could transform the Midwest's economy, a Cargill executive and a former treasury secretary told a Minneapolis business crowd on Friday.

As the trial gets underway this week, we look at how oil companies think about future drilling, fracking and mining.

The Upper St. Anthony Falls lock, which began passing ships up and down the Mississippi River in 1963, will close in June.

The Marshall project, a 500-acre solar panel complex, is part of a state push to generate more electricity. But area residents say it is too much for a rural setting.

It comes days after up to 50,000 gallons of oil spilled from a break in a pipeline along the Yellowstone River. Saturday's spill is the second in the river since 2011.

John Cruden returns to the department as litigation over the Deepwater Horizon oil spill intensifies. He'll also defend Obama climate change rules and try to protect wildlife while in the post.

Pipeline company Enbridge hopes research can head off a possible obstacle to the construction of the Sandpiper pipeline.

The proposal is likely to draw opposition from farmers and other affected landowners in southern Minnesota.

Bird advocates have cited a much smaller figure -- around $1 million -- for the cost of "fritted" glass.

The program encourages farmers to adopt voluntary clean water practices. Those who get certified are assured that regulations won't change on them for 10 years.

The fungus that causes white-nose syndrome was found in two of Minnesota's largest bat enclaves.

U.S. Rep. Collin Peterson is co-sponsoring a bill that would undo recent court decisions that have blocked four states from allowing hunting and trapping of wolves for sport and predator control.

The disease known as white-nose syndrome has killed millions of bats, but scientists are seeing hopeful signs that some bat colonies are recovering.

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources says the daily bag and possession limit will be two walleye starting Jan. 23.

St. Paul-based Ecolab Inc. has commissioned a new community solar garden project that it says will offset nearly 90 percent of its energy usage from all its company operations in Minnesota.

Fertilizer runoff has provoked a confrontation between Des Moines and the farms that surround it. The city's water utility wants to sue neighboring counties for nitrates in the Raccoon River.