Water & Oceans

"In San Francisco Bay, new AI-powered technology aims to help ships dodge whales whose long-haul migration is being disrupted by climate change."

"The pesticide industry has spent decades building a highly effective influence operation in Washington D.C., shaping how pesticides are regulated and how American agriculture operates."

"Internal emails obtained by POLITICO through a public records request paint a portrait of an agency that moved quickly to defend the only data center in Virginia that is powering itself — in what former officials and environmental health advocates described as an unusual effort to shape the debate around an industry whose global epicenter is in the state."

"Climate models show warmer winters, with precipitation rates staying about the same but producing more rain and less snowpack, which leads to summer drought."

"The Trump administration is moving closer to opening up U.S. waters for deep-sea mining—a contentious and largely untested industry focused on extracting mineral-rich deposits from the ocean floor containing cobalt, copper, nickel and manganese." "If the sale moves forward, mining activities could begin in federal waters near American Samoa. The proposed site is directly adjacent to a national wildlife refuge."

"Recent studies show that microplastics are already present in a variety of Amazonian environments: Major rivers such as the Amazon, urban streams, floodplain areas and mangroves in the Amazon’s Mouth."

"Approximately a billion tiny plastic nurdles have entered the River Tyne after a “devastating spill”, with the pellets thought to have spread much further than first thought."

"New protections for endangered right whales in the North Atlantic would be postponed for nearly a decade under a plan that cleared a key hurdle in Washington last week with the full-throated support of the fishing and lobster industries."

"On a pristine Rhode Island beach teeming with noisy seabirds, a group of biologists armed with nets sneak up on a pair of American oystercatcher chicks."

"The Colorado River’s largest reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, have declined to their lowest combined levels on record.
Researchers say the new low underscores the urgent need to cut water use in the seven states that depend on the river."