Water & Oceans

"Lax enforcement, outdated rules and numerous substances — natural and manmade — threaten drinking water for hundreds of thousands of state residents".

"Recent scientific discoveries show that the Amazon rainforest might control the climate for much of South America. The theory could mean even more disastrous ramifications for the fragile ecosystem if deforestation continues unabated." Besides being an engine for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, the rainforest seems to pump a "river" of moisture through the atmosphere that is larger than the Amazon itself.

"The American Farm Bureau Federation and other industry groups today asked the Supreme Court to review U.S. EPA's landmark approach for cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay."

"Of 32 BNSF train cars that hurtled off the tracks near Alma, Wis., on Saturday, five of them broke open and spilled at least 18,000 gallons of ethanol into the Mississippi River, the railroad company said."

"MARIANA, Brazil -- "Three days after a massive mudflow and flood caused by ruptured dams at an iron ore mine, Brazilian authorities are still struggling to determine a cause or even recover the bodies of as many as 28 people possibly swept away in the torrent."

"Casualties from a collapsed dam at a Brazilian mine owned by Vale and BHP Billiton mounted on Friday after rescue teams worked through the night to find the dozens missing in mudslides that devastated a nearby village."

"Federal authorities said on Thursday they were investigating the deaths of two California common bottlenose dolphins that stranded and died on beaches just a few miles apart in San Diego a day after the U.S. Navy conducted a brief exercise with sonar."

"U.S. EPA's science advisers are criticizing the agency's June announcement dismissing the dangers to drinking water from hydraulic fracturing."

"Only two of 10 Barataria Bay bottlenose dolphins that were found to be pregnant in 2011, a year after the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion oiled the bay, had successful pregnancies. And the survival rate through July 2015 for adult dolphins that were given health assessments in the bay in 2011 is 10 percent lower than found in two studies of dolphins in un-oiled Sarasota Bay, Fla."

"The Senate voted Tuesday to advance a measure to block the Obama administration’s new regulation asserting federal authority over small waterways." But if the measure ever reaches President Obama's desk, he is likely to veto it, and the Senate seems unable to override a veto.