Researchers and officials from Oregon State University and other state agencies are proposing the most ambitious mapping effort ever done of the territorial seafloor off Oregon, a two-year, $5.6-million effort they say would have a huge range of long-term benefits for everything from fisheries management to tsunami planning and creation of marine reserves.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has approved a plan to establish and protect more than 150,000 square miles of marine waters off the West Coast as Essential Fish Habitat.

Conservation and fishing groups last week asked the federal Ninth Circuit of Appeals to put a hold on plans dismantle the Fish Passage Center and transfer many of its present tasks to two other entities.

The British Columbia provincial government has invited Montana to participate in an environmental review for a mine in the headwaters of the Canadian Flathead and to jointly pursue a “comprehensive review” of environmental data and research in that basin.