Water & Oceans

"Researchers assembled a historical database of U.S. flood maps and home prices to estimate how much bad communication costs homebuyers." "At least 3.8 million U.S. homes lie in flood plains. Together, they may be overvalued by $34 billion."

"Almost half of the world’s sandy beaches will have retreated significantly by the end of the century as a result of climate-driven coastal flooding and human interference, according to new research."

"The Trump administration on Friday awarded a permanent water delivery contract to the country's largest agricultural district, brushing aside environmentalists' concerns about California's uncertain water future in the face of climate change."

"The Lake Erie Bill of Rights was invalidated Thursday night by U.S. District Judge Jack Zouhary, who said in an eight-page ruling that his decision was “not a close call” because he believes the citizen-led referendum — though approved by a majority of Toledo voters in a special election last year — “is unconstitutionally vague and exceeds the power of municipal government in Ohio.”

"Standing in his boat in Florida’s Apalachicola Bay, Michael Dasher lowered a long pair of tongs into the water, pulling up a muddy mass of oysters that his son sorted, keeping those big enough to sell and tossing the rest back into the brackish bay."

"For the second year in a row, much of the U.S. is primed to suffer multi-billion dollar flood losses, with farmers already steeling themselves for planting delays."

"A long-awaited federal report out Friday rejected the idea of removing four hydroelectric dams on a major Pacific Northwest river in a last-ditch effort to save threatened and endangered salmon, saying such a dramatic approach would destabilize the power grid, increase overall greenhouse emissions and more than double the risk of regional power outages."