WASHINGTON — Neutral scientists said Friday that it's too soon to judge the effectiveness of ambitious plans to save fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

While calling the controversial water diversions "scientifically justified," National Research Council scientists cautioned that they cannot yet be definitively evaluated. The split verdict left farmers and environmentalists alike something to seize upon in a much-anticipated report.

"There is great uncertainty," acknowledged Samuel Luoma, a research professor at the University of California at Davis's John Muir Institute of the Environment. » read more

WASHINGTON — Congressional investigators sent more letters this week as they continue their probe into past water contamination at the Marines' Camp Lejeune, N.C.

The oversight panel on the House Science and Technology Committee seeks documents going back decades from private contractors, the Environmental Protection Agency and officials at a federal science agency.

The letters request information about fuel spills at a centrally located underground tank farm, correspondence about the contamination and a list of documents that the Marines gave scientists who were trying to understand the impact of the toxic water. » read more

Monarch butterflies, hit hard by strong storms at their winter home in Mexico, have dwindled to their lowest population levels in decades as they begin to return to Texas on their springtime flight back to the United States and Canada.

The monarch loss is estimated at 50 to 60 percent and means that the breeding population flying northward is expected to be the smallest since the Mexican overwintering colonies were discovered in 1975, said Chip Taylor, a professor of entomology and director of Monarch Watch at the University of Kansas.

"I think it is very clear that the butterflies lost more than half of the population," Taylor said. "I'm hoping it wasn't as high as 70 or 80 percent. We've never seen it this bad before." » read more