Water & Oceans

"At least some of the tar balls found littering one of southern California's most popular beaches last month were matched by lab tests to crude oil that spilled from a ruptured pipeline along the Santa Barbara coast about 100 miles away, state and pipeline company officials said on Monday."

"Drinking water wells in Texas counties that are home to intensive hydraulic fracturing operations contain elevated levels of more than two dozen metals and chemicals, including carcinogens, according to a new study in Environmental Science & Technology."

Efforts to keep the invasive Asian Carp from migrating upstream caused Congress to shut down Upper St. Anthony Falls Lock & Dam. That will end end 52 years of barge traffic on the northernmost stretch of the Mississippi River.

"Hundreds of thousands of tiny crabs have been washing up on Southern California beaches, marring the sandy coastline with streaks of red, as warm ocean currents carry them farther north and closer to shore than usual, officials said on Wednesday."

"The West Coast is experiencing the largest bloom of toxic algae in more than a decade, prompting wide-ranging closures of commercial crab and shellfish harvesting."

"North Korea says it is facing its worst drought in a century, with its main rice-growing provinces badly affected. What effect will this have on an already impoverished population?"

"Regulators are severely underestimating the health harms from the pollution that power plants dump into waterways, an environmental group said Wednesday."

"California’s drought has put the great Central Valley aquifer system under critical stress, but many of the world’s major groundwater basins are in far worse shape, a new satellite survey has found."