A new government report says already scarce water supplies in the Western United States are likely to dwindle further as a result of climate change, exacerbating problems for millions of water users in the West.

The Arizona Game and Fish Commission on Wednesday endorsed a U.S. Department of the Interior proposal to withdraw more than 1 million acres surrounding the Grand Canyon from mining for the next 20 years.

The Maricopa County Air Quality Department expects within the next two months to upgrade its air monitors in a move that will help officials report urban dust levels more quickly.

Arizona’s forests must be thinned to address overgrowth that harms watersheds and endangers wildlife and surrounding communities, the state’s top forestry official told lawmwakers Thursday.

The Maricopa County Air Quality Department says a $1 million enforcement settlement has been reached with a Phoenix sand and gravel business.

In the “mutual benefits agreement” signed in 2008 and renewed recently, Superior pledged its support for federal legislation that would make a huge copper mine possible by exchanging protected land in the Tonto National Forest for parcels of comparable value elsewhere in the state. Any official communication opposing the plan to the governor or a member of Arizona’s congressional delegation would void the deal, and the town agreed to provide letters of support to those same officials.

But in promoting its plans Resolution Copper Mining LLC, the company that would set up the new mine, has created similar agreements with groups whose opposition could be detrimental.

A dwindling Saguaro National Park in the Sonoran Desert outside Tucson suffocated by an invasive grass. Baren prairies where pine forests once thrived near Flagstaff. The Colorado River run dry, leading to desalinated ocean water as drinking water for the state.

These are just a few of the possibilities that experts offered for how Arizona’s forests, deserts and major metropolitan areas might look at the end of the century given generally accepted rates of global warming.

The Arizona Game and Fish Commission has voted to support congressional action aimed at removing gray wolves from the federal endangered species list.

Officials with the Coconino National Forest are rewriting a 23-year-old blueprint for the forest and attempting to address some big problems, like climate change and water pollution.

Ben Grumbles, the director of the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, announced that he’ll step down from the agency by the end of the year.

Grumbles announced the resignation to the ADEQ staff in an email Oct. 28.