"First it was the eerie images of barrels leaking on the seafloor not far from Catalina Island. Then the shocking realization that the nation's largest manufacturer of DDT had once used the ocean as a huge dumping ground—and that as many as half a million barrels of its acid waste had been poured straight into the water."
"As drought dried up rivers that carry California’s newly hatched Chinook salmon to the ocean, state officials in recent years resorted to loading up the fish by the millions onto trucks and barges to take them to the Pacific."
"A federal review of plans for a Great Lakes oil pipeline tunnel will take more than a year longer than originally planned, officials said Thursday, likely delaying completion of the project — if approved — until 2030 or later."
"A federal court judge in Texas issued a preliminary injunction against the Biden administration’s waters of the US, or WOTUS, rule late Sunday. The injunction applies only to Texas and Idaho. The 2023 WOTUS rule takes effect Monday in the rest of the country and determines which waters and wetlands receive federal protection under the Clean Water Act."
"Alarmed by plummeting stocks of commercial fisheries in the Chesapeake Bay, officials in Maryland and Virginia are scrambling to control invasive fish species that are causing at least part of the problem."
"Sunflower sea stars, huge starfish that until recently thrived in waters up and down the west coast of North America, are threatened with extinction and should be protected under the Endangered Species Act, federal officials said Wednesday."
"Federal regulators overseeing West Coast fisheries have effectively called off California’s entire 2023 ocean salmon fishing season, in an effort to protect fish populations that have dwindled during the ongoing drought."
"After years of environmental assault — from dam building, overfishing, and logging — stretches of the Mekong River, upon which millions of people depend, appear to be recovering. Heavy rains have helped, along with a crackdown on illegal fishing and other conservation efforts."
"Excessive use of phosphorus is depleting reserves vital to global food production, while also adding to the climate crisis".
"Federal regulators designated two U.S. freshwater mussels as threatened on Wednesday, a further sign of trouble for native mollusks that help cleanse waters by filtering out pollutants as they feed."
