Water & Oceans

"Desperate towns have turned to private equity firms to manage their waterworks. The deals bring much-needed upgrades, but can carry hefty price tags."

"The people of Hendricks, Minn., thought they had won the feedlot war two years ago when they sued to stop a mega-dairy slated for a hilltop just across the border in South Dakota."

"Rebel groups reportedly dumped diesel into the source of the city's water supply, prompting authorities to shut down pipelines. Government forces are laying siege to the source of the water."

"Texas is among several states grappling with a surge of abandoned drilling sites and dwindling funds to clean them up."

"Federal inspections of cattle and hog feedlots, turkey houses, and other animal feeding operations dropped for a fourth consecutive year, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data. The number of fines and orders to change management practices for those same facilities fell for a fifth consecutive year."

"The city of Clovis won its more than three-month-long civil trial against chemical manufacturing giant Shell Oil Co. over the cleanup of a toxic chemical found in drinking-water wells around the city of 108,000 people."

"Roughly 288,000 Iowans rely on private water supplies but may not know what is in their water because their wells’ water quality is unregulated."

"President Obama announced on Tuesday what he called a permanent ban on offshore oil and gas drilling along wide areas of the Arctic and the Atlantic Seaboard as he tried to nail down an environmental legacy that cannot quickly be reversed by Donald J. Trump."

"Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette's criminal investigation of the Flint water crisis moved a step closer to the highest levels of state government Tuesday as he brought felony charges against two former emergency managers who reported to former Treasurer Andy Dillon and were appointed by Republican Gov. Rick Snyder."