Water & Oceans

"U.S. EPA's science advisers are criticizing the agency's June announcement dismissing the dangers to drinking water from hydraulic fracturing."

"Only two of 10 Barataria Bay bottlenose dolphins that were found to be pregnant in 2011, a year after the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion oiled the bay, had successful pregnancies. And the survival rate through July 2015 for adult dolphins that were given health assessments in the bay in 2011 is 10 percent lower than found in two studies of dolphins in un-oiled Sarasota Bay, Fla."

"The Senate voted Tuesday to advance a measure to block the Obama administration’s new regulation asserting federal authority over small waterways." But if the measure ever reaches President Obama's desk, he is likely to veto it, and the Senate seems unable to override a veto.

"President Obama [Tuesday] ordered five federal agencies to streamline regulations for offsetting environmental harm and to promote independent mitigation efforts."

"A large ship found in deep water off the Bahamas is the lost freighter El Faro that sank with 33 crew members in a hurricane last month, U.S. authorities said on Monday."

"There's far more riding on the Americas' largest seawater desalination plant than the 50 million gallons of drinking water it will produce for the San Diego area each day."

"One of the last wild runs of chinook salmon in California is sinking fast amid the four-year drought and now appears perilously close to oblivion after the federal agency in charge of protecting marine life documented the death of millions of young fish and eggs in the Sacramento River."

"NEW ORLEANS - Gulf coral damage from the massive BP oil spill is more extensive than previously thought, according to a new study that revealed sick and dying corals in the rich, deep-water environment off the coasts of Alabama and Mississippi known as the Pinnacles."

"The rapid warming of the waters off New England has contributed to the historic collapse of the region’s cod population and has hampered its ability to rebound, according to a study that for the first time links climate change to the iconic species’ plummeting numbers."

"The island nation of Kiribati is one of the world's most vulnerable to rising sea levels. But residents may have to leave well before the ocean claims their homes."