Water & Oceans

"The flooding Mississippi River is done watching and waiting. And anyone who doubts that the river has become T.S. Eliot's personification of 'a strong brown god' need only walk up the slope of the levee and peer over the top."

"During an audit last year, federal authorities found an industrial plant had flushed pollutants into Columbia’s sewer system without making sure the contaminants were at legal levels."
 

"The Ohio and Mississippi River levels were falling Wednesday at the site where engineers blasted holes in a Missouri levee to relieve pressure. But unleashing torrents of water across 35 miles of farmland in what has already been a terrible flooding season could carry other consequences. One risk, scientists cautioned, is fertilizer runoff from the flooded farm country along the Mississippi."

"A proposal to build a large water tunnel under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta is incomplete, confused and plagued by a number of scientific gaps despite years of study, according to a National Research Council report."

Depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer, which has supported life on the U.S. High Plains for decades, poses as much of a threat to the region as drought, depression, or depopulation.

"A coalition of conservation groups has made good on its threat to take the owners of Chicago's sewage treatment plants to court over the foul stuff they have been discharging into the Chicago River for more than a century."

"Just months into his first term, Rep. Bob Gibbs admits he has much to learn. But the Ohio Republican holds strong reservations about environmental regulation in general."

"A few momentary blasts, flashes of orange light, and the Mississippi River began pouring through a wide hole in a Missouri levee, intentionally blown open by the Army Corps of Engineers in the hope of saving a small Illinois town."