Water & Oceans

"A coalition of conservation groups has made good on its threat to take the owners of Chicago's sewage treatment plants to court over the foul stuff they have been discharging into the Chicago River for more than a century."

"Just months into his first term, Rep. Bob Gibbs admits he has much to learn. But the Ohio Republican holds strong reservations about environmental regulation in general."

"A few momentary blasts, flashes of orange light, and the Mississippi River began pouring through a wide hole in a Missouri levee, intentionally blown open by the Army Corps of Engineers in the hope of saving a small Illinois town."

A 14-year-old federal loan program, the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, has helped managers of community water systems like Steven Meade in Atlanta, Idaho, provide safe and clean water for their customers via loans. No more. Republican-led budget cuts mean Meade's community can't make its water fit to drink.

"Los Alamos National Laboratory must capture and eliminate toxic runoff from over 400 waste dump sites that discharge pollutants to the Rio Grande, a source of drinking water for Santa Fe, under a settlement agreement reached Thursday with community groups."

EPA's work on possible limits to hexavalent chromium (the 'Erin Brockovich' contaminant) in drinking water may spark a battle like the one over arsenic.

"One of U.S. EPA's longest ongoing enforcement matters is about to be wrapped up after a federal jury ruled this week that the Clean Water Act protects 46 acres of wetlands filled in by a Massachusetts cranberry farmer more than two decades ago."

"The Obama administration announced Wednesday that it will impose stricter pollution controls on millions of acres of wetlands and tens of thousands of miles of streams."