Water & Oceans

"FLINT, Mich. — Near the top of the daily challenges that Flint residents face in a city without safe drinking water is how and where to shower."

"The [Chesapeake] Bay’s blue crab population increased to its highest level in four years, and the number of spawning-age females — a key ingredient for future abundance — nearly doubled from last year, according to survey results released Tuesday."

"The Obama administration will announce Thursday safety regulations for offshore oil and natural gas drilling to prevent the kind of explosion that happened six years ago on a BP rig in the Gulf of Mexico, an official told Reuters."

"Flint residents aren’t using enough water to pull necessary chemical treatments through the city’s system, hindering efforts to get water up to safety standards in a community where residents are afraid to use their taps and loathe to pay for what comes out of them.

Although the past six months have produced improvements, recent testing by Virginia Tech researchers, including expert Marc Edwards, shows contamination still at problem levels.

"With scientists forecasting sea levels to rise by anywhere from several inches to several feet by 2100, historic structures and coastal heritage sites around the world are under threat. Some sites and artifacts could become submerged."

"ISLE DE JEAN CHARLES, La. -- Looking out from the house he built in 1959 with lumber brought by boat to this island at the south end of Terrebonne Parish, Wenceslaus Billiot remembers when the view from his back porch was thick forest and solid marsh. Now there is just open water."

"Kim Cobb, a marine scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, expected the coral to be damaged when she plunged into the deep blue waters off Kiritimati Island, a remote atoll near the center of the Pacific Ocean. Still, she was stunned by what she saw as she descended some 30 feet to the rim of a coral outcropping."

As legal actions against the chemical company 3M go forward, lawyers are charging that 3M "knew about the health hazards posed by the perfluorinated chemicals it was manufacturing and using to make carpet coating, Scotchgard, firefighting foam, and other products — and that the company knew the chemicals were spreading beyond its sites."

"In-depth scientific research and broad-based communications are both needed to get control of harmful algal blooms and low-oxygen conditions called hypoxia in U.S. waters, advises a new report to Congress."