"Raleigh, N.C. — Maps released by Duke Energy late last week reveal for the first time that nearly 300 individual structures – homes, businesses and town infrastructure – could be in danger of flooding as a result of dam failures at the energy firm's coal ash pits scattered across the state."
"For ten days across recent summers, researchers aboard the University of Delaware research vessel Hugh R. Sharp collected water samples from the mouth of the Susquehanna River to Solomons Island in a first-of-its-kind investigation. They wanted to know when and where the waters of the Chesapeake Bay were turning most acidic."
"When Marla Waseka converted the gracious Franciscan nunnery northwest of St. Cloud to a boutique lakeside resort and retreat in 2008, the nitrate levels in her well were low. A few years later they were so high she had to warn her guests not to drink the water. And when authorities warned they’d shut her down if it weren’t fixed, she spent $12,000 to drill a deeper well for clean water."
"The Trump administration has a new plan for the Portland Harbor Superfund site that Oregon officials say could reverse progress toward cleaning up toxic pollution in the Willamette River."
"Rainfall from Hurricane Irma has pushed the water level in Lake Okeechobee to its highest point since 2005. Now, with more wet weather in the forecast, nearby residents fear a collapse of the 80-year-old dike around the lake."
Reporters looking to cover local safe drinking water stories can start smartly by looking at federal and state funding. That's the advice of this week's TipSheet, which simplifies your research with a 50-state directory of Safe Drinking Water Revolving Fund programs. Get your state info here.
"While Flint battles a water crisis, just two hours away the beverage giant pumps almost 100,000 times what an average Michigan resident uses into plastic bottles".
"POCOSIN LAKES NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, N.C. — Tea-colored water seeps from bogs here in eastern North Carolina's soggy, shrubby "blacklands," as local farmers call them."
"A potentially harmful algae bloom covered more than 700 square miles in the western basin of Lake Erie last week, turning the lake bright green and alarming residents and local officials."
"A new study says small patches of native prairie plants provide a range of conservation benefits to Iowa’s landscape and could reduce water pollution from farm fields."
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