Local environmental group Columbia Riverkeeper has hired a community organizer who will partner with Latino civic organizations and spearhead efforts to restore the Nichols Natural Area.

Regulators have found contaminated groundwater at the site of the June 3 fiery oil train derailment in Mosier.

Young environmental stewards armed with buckets and plastic shovels did their part last Wednesday in the broad local effort to restore a wildlife habitat on the Hood River waterfront.