Agriculture

"California regulators have begun curtailing the water rights of many farms and irrigation districts along the Sacramento River, forcing growers to stop diverting water from the river and its tributaries.

The order, which took effect Thursday, puts a hold on about 5,800 water rights across the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers’ watersheds, reflecting the severity of California’s extreme drought.

"EPA has set new restrictions on the use of three commonly used pesticides, including the highly controversial chemical chlorpyrifos."

"Drought-ruined crops and a government mandate to sell harvests to the state raise fears of food insecurity".

"In the 1980s, farmers in Bangladesh went from paddies to ponds, letting salt water flood their land. Now millions are left counting the cost".

"The Chesapeake Bay Program reported on Wednesday that Maryland’s wastewater treatment facilities, operating in violation of discharge permits, contributed significant increases in nitrogen and phosphorus pollution last year in the bay."

"Researchers are developing ways to predict how much land will burn out West and where ocean heat waves will occur up to a year in advance".

"Driving down a windy canyon road in northern Oregon rangeland, Jordan Maley and April Aamodt are on the look out for Mormon crickets, giant insects that can ravage crops."

"Beside a canal that runs through farmland, rushing water roared through an irrigation gate and flowed down a concrete culvert toward a wetland fringed with cottonwoods and willows."

"The current pace of reducing agricultural pollution in the Chesapeake Bay is off track, an advocacy group said Wednesday."