Vermont officials, legislators face daunting task of Lake Champlain cleanup

The first of many challenges has, and remains, how to improve the lake's water quality and still allow development to usurp the natural land that wold otherwise filter surface runoff into the lake and its tributaries, one 0of which, the Winooski River, I live a half-mile from. The Burlington Free Press offers this look at the cleanup.

Give new Adirondack Forest Preeserve lands a wilderness classification, groups say

They're right, as a matter of fact. True wilderness, whether in New York State's Adirondack Park or on federal public land, is the surest and most responsible category for wild lands. The media likes to categorize the decision-making process as some sort of "debate," but there is no real debate: Wild places deserve to be protected as wilderness.