Water & Oceans

"The top predator prowling the seas during the age of the dinosaurs 100 million years ago may have been the octopus."

"When Ann McDonald went kayaking several weeks after a 2024 rainstorm, she thought the water in the Alewife Brook just outside Boston was safe. Even though sewage discharges into the brook during heavy storms, public health officials recommended waiting just 48 hours after rain for bacteria levels to drop — so when McDonald’s kayak got stuck in debris, she wasn’t concerned about dipping her arms into the water to free herself. Later that afternoon, she fell sick with diarrhea."

"A WIRED review of permits for data center projects using natural gas and linked to OpenAI, Meta, Microsoft, and xAI shows they could emit more than 129 million tons of greenhouse gases per year."

"No modern American city has ever run out of water. But chances are rising that Corpus Christi, Texas, could be the first. Absent a biblical rainfall event, its reservoirs are on track to completely dry up by next year."

"Extreme heat is threatening the world’s food systems, with farmers unable to work outside, livestock experiencing stress and crop yields falling, putting the livelihoods of more than a billion people in peril, the UN has warned."

"The Trump administration is creating a new office that critics say could weaken the environmental oversight of oil drilling and seabed mining in territorial waters." "The new federal office will undo a change made after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil disaster. Critics say it could reduce environmental oversight."

"Four endangered fish species could see a big boon from the Bureau of Reclamation’s emergency plans for the stressed waterway this year."

"It could worsen heat and humidity in the West this summer, and also boost the risks of Pacific hurricanes as well as wildfires in the region."

"As the Rio Grande dries out months early, water managers look to blessings, prayers and groundwater to save the acequias that have spread water, history and culture to farmers and families since the 16th century."

"After Texas regulators said Tesla’s lithium refinery near Corpus Christi wasn’t violating its permits by discharging what local officials reported as black wastewater into a drainage ditch, independent water testing there this month found two toxic metals and other contaminants."