Water & Oceans

"Thousands of acres of cropland have been inundated in this heavily farmed swath of the San Joaquin Valley. And the water just keeps rising."

"First it was the eerie images of barrels leaking on the seafloor not far from Catalina Island. Then the shocking realization that the nation's largest manufacturer of DDT had once used the ocean as a huge dumping ground—and that as many as half a million barrels of its acid waste had been poured straight into the water."

"Canada has pledged a significant increase in spending to improve water quality in the Great Lakes following Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden, whose administration also has boosted funding for the shared waters."

"As drought dried up rivers that carry California’s newly hatched Chinook salmon to the ocean, state officials in recent years resorted to loading up the fish by the millions onto trucks and barges to take them to the Pacific."

"A big-wave surfer at Mavericks is essentially an ocean sensor. Grant Washburn can tell you the approximate depth of the seafloor beneath him, the size of a 40-foot wave and the wind speed blowing foam off the peak, all based on the crescendo in his nervous system."

"Scientists for the federal government say documents that Georgia state regulators relied upon to conclude a proposed mine won’t harm the nearby Okefenokee Swamp and its vast wildlife refuge contain technical errors and “critical shortcomings” that render them unreliable."

"Water containing a radioactive material has leaked for a second time from a nuclear plant near Minneapolis and the plant will be shut down, but there is no danger to the public, the plant’s owner said Thursday."

"An oil tanker runs aground off eastern China, leaking fuel into the water. Another is caught in a collision near Cuba. A third is seized in Spain for drifting out of control. These vessels were part of a "shadow" fleet of tankers carrying oil last year from countries hit by Western sanctions, according to a Reuters analysis of ship tracking and accident data and interviews with more than a dozen industry specialists."

"A federal review of plans for a Great Lakes oil pipeline tunnel will take more than a year longer than originally planned, officials said Thursday, likely delaying completion of the project — if approved — until 2030 or later."

"A small South Carolina law firm angling to be the lead litigator in the Camp Lejeune toxic water cases spent $1.9 million lobbying US lawmakers in the last two years, as Congress approved a multibillion-dollar payout to sickened veterans that dropped a provision to limit the fees their lawyers could charge."