Water & Oceans

"Plastic junk is floating widely on the world's oceans, but there's less of it than expected, a study says."

"Officials in California are asking people to use less water because of the severe drought. But about a million people in the state live in homes without the best means of water-use management: meters."

Joe Rubin reports for NPR's Morning Edition June 26, 2014.

"Scientists are predicting that the Chesapeake Bay's oxygen-starved "dead zone" will be slightly larger than average this summer."

"The size of the annual summer "dead zone" of low-oxygen water in the Gulf of Mexico along Louisiana's coast will cover between 4,633 and 5,708 miles, about the size of the state of Connecticut, according to a Tuesday forecast announced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration."

"According to the 24th annual report released by the Natural Resources Defense Council, one in 10 U.S. beaches are dangerously polluted -- so polluted, in fact, that they have been deemed unsafe for swimmers."

"It would be so much easier if the whales had faced just one problem."

"Even though a government report revealed that most experts foresee water shortages within the next decade, countless of gallons of water are currently wasted every day by an aging and inefficient infrastructure."

"From the water's edge in Norfolk, Va., the U.S. naval base spans the whole horizon. Aircraft carriers, supply centers, barracks and admirals' homes fill a vast expanse. But Ray Toll, a retired naval oceanographer, says the "majority of [the naval base], if not all of it" is at risk of flooding "because it's so low and it's flat.""

"Florida taxpayers have been left shouldering most of the $2 billion Everglades water pollution cleanup cost, despite a constitutional amendment passed by nearly 70 percent of voters that calls for the sugar industry to pick up its share of the tab."