"Texas would rely more on treated toilet water and pumping rainwater into aquifers to serve its booming population over the next half-century under the state's 2017 water plan approved Thursday."
"With clay soil and tabletop-flat terrain, Houston has endured flooding for generations. Its 1,700 miles of man-made channels struggle to dispatch storm runoff to the Gulf of Mexico. Now the nation's fourth-largest city is being overwhelmed with more frequent and more destructive floods."
"The first genetically modified food animal has been approved for sale in Canada."
"German drug and chemicals-maker Bayer has made a takeover bid for agricultural giant Monsanto in a deal that could create the world's biggest supplier of seeds and pesticides."
"Thousands of homeowners have reached a $375 million settlement over their claims that plutonium releases from a nuclear weapons plant in Colorado damaged their health and devalued their property, officials said Thursday."
"Odds are increasing that 2016 will be the hottest year on the books, as April continued a remarkable streak of record-warm months."
"The EPA announced new drinking water health advisory levels today for the industrial chemicals PFOA and PFOS. The new levels — .07 parts per billion (ppb) for both chemicals — are significantly lower than standards the agency issued in 2009, which were .4 ppb for PFOA and .2 ppb for PFOS."
"House and Senate negotiators reached agreement on Thursday on far-reaching legislation to overhaul the nation’s 40-year-old law governing toxic chemicals, a compromise that would subject thousands of household chemicals to regulation for the first time.
Public health advocates and environmentalists have complained for decades that the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act is outdated and riddled with gaps that leave Americans exposed to harmful chemicals. Under current law, around 64,000 chemicals are not subject to environmental testing or regulation.
"Researchers in Arizona are fighting fire with fire. They're collecting new data on a wasp that may help slow the spread of citrus greening, a plant disease that has devastated millions of acres of citrus crops, particularly in Florida."
"New report says genetically engineered crops are safe to eat but weed resistance and other unanswered environmental questions should be cause for more regulatory oversight."
