Washington Ecology Director Maia Bellon will resign at the end of the year, she announced Monday.

A state agency wants to take some $113 million Washington will receive from Volkswagen for dirty diesel engines and use it to boost the use of vehicles that produce less pollution.

Don't let a bit of rain in the last few weeks fool you. Washington remains in a drought, state officials said Thursday.

Some of Washington’s largest polluters will have to cut back greenhouse emissions under new rules state officials are developing. The rules would target about 35 industrial facilities jointly responsible for 60 percent of the heat-trapping gases produced in Washington. The proposed regulation follows Gov. Jay Inslee’s failure to get a cap-and-trade system and carbon tax approved by the Legislature this year.

OLYMPIA – Washington has a statewide drought emergency that will likely lead some farmers to go without water for their crops and some small water districts to look at reductions for  their customers. Historic low snowpack in many of the state’s mountain ranges prompted Gov. Jay Inslee to expand the drought emergency to the entire state Friday morning. Earlier in the year he had issued emergency declarations for some regions that rely heavily on snow runoff from the Cascades or Olympics, as well as Yakima and some parts of southeastern Washington.

OLYMPIA – Nearly half of Washington is expected to face hardships due to worsening drought and snowpack conditions, and state officials say they are on the lookout for problems across the state. State agencies project the amount of runoff from melting snow this summer will be the lowest since records began to be kept 64 years ago, threatening farmers and wildlife throughout Western and Central Washington and as far east as Walla Walla.

OLYMPIA – There’s a big downside to the relatively mild winter with more rain than snow that most of Washington experienced, and it’s not for skiers and snowboarders. Parts of the state have a snowpack drought. Gov. Jay Inslee declared a drought emergency Friday for the Olympic Peninsula, much of the eastern slope of the Cascades and the Walla Walla region, triggering special authority for state agencies to address what they expect to be water shortages for agriculture, fish and some rural water systems. Most urban water systems are expected to have adequate drinking water, and the dams along the Columbia River should have plenty of water to turn the turbines and pump out electricity.