Water & Oceans

"A Supreme Court judge backed a government move to crack down on illegal gold mining in Brazil, suspending a legal practice of buyers accepting the origin of the precious metal with paper receipts based on the "good faith" of the seller."

"The Biden administration will put nearly $600 million toward drought resilience and upgrades to water infrastructure, Interior Department officials announced Wednesday."

"On the Isle of Wight, one of England's most popular seaside holiday destinations since Victorian times, a pipeline stretches out from the shore to pump raw sewage into coastal waters."

"Lengthy delays. Staffing shortages. Byzantine regulations. These are trying times for Maryland’s well and septic permitting program. State officials can’t even quantify the overall extent of the permitting delays because the system lacks a centralized database."

"The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on Tuesday that it estimates that there are 9.2 million lead pipes carrying water throughout the country and said it was allocating some of the funds from the bipartisan infrastructure law to replace them."

"The safety of oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico has dramatically improved since the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon disaster, but progress has been uneven and critical gaps must be addressed to prevent accidents that can threaten workers, the environment and public health, a report released Tuesday by the National Academy of Sciences said."

"England’s most celebrated beaches faced 8,500 hours of sewage dumping last year, new figures show. Many beaches with blue flag status– an international mark of recognition that a beach is deemed safe and has good water quality – were found to have been covered in waste over the last 12 months."

"California’s wet and wintry start to the year has resulted in perhaps the deepest snowpack recorded in more than 70 years, officials said Monday."

"A federal appeals court on Monday vacated a water permit needed by developers to restart construction on the Mountain Valley pipeline in West Virginia, marking the latest setback for the $6.2 billion project."

"As meetings to oversee deep-sea mining on the high seas draw to a close, it remains unclear whether regulators will allow it to commence in the near future."