Water & Oceans

"The nation’s rivers and streams remain stubbornly polluted with nutrients that contaminate drinking water and fuel a gigantic dead zone for aquatic life in the Gulf of Mexico, according to a recently released Environmental Protection Agency assessment."

"In a scathing review, advisors to the state Legislature have found that California's proposed regulations for urban water conservation would be costly, overly complicated and difficult to implement."

"With no date in sight for when it will be safe to drink tap water again on the island of St. Croix, officials in the U.S. Virgin Islands announced Wednesday night that they would distribute water filters and provide free lead and copper testing as they work on long-term solutions."

"Scientists have mapped the largest coral reef deep in the ocean, stretching hundreds of miles off the U.S. Atlantic coast. While researchers have known since the 1960s that some coral were present off the Atlantic, the reef’s size remained a mystery until new underwater mapping technology made it possible to construct 3D images of the ocean floor."

"The Greenland ice cap is losing an average of 30m tonnes of ice an hour due to the climate crisis, a study has revealed, which is 20% more than was previously thought."

"Crop-killing weeds such as kochia are advancing across the U.S. northern plains and Midwest, in the latest sign that weeds are developing resistance to chemicals faster than companies including Bayer and Corteva can develop new ones to fight them."

"There’s still a long way to go, but oyster recovery efforts in Maryland’s portion of Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries continue to show promising results, state officials for the agency charged with monitoring the mollusk ecosystem said."

"The Pennsylvania and Florida hacks came after a lawsuit spurred EPA’s retreat from mandating cybersecurity protections for the water sector."