"The surge that's scheduled to hit the American coastline Wednesday isn't coming from a hurricane, but it could still leave a feeling of helplessness in its wake. Flood insurance rates are set to skyrocket when a new bill goes into effect on April 1."
"Royal Dutch Shell will resume drilling off Alaska after suspending operations for two years in the wake of an accident, the special U.S. envoy to the Arctic said on Monday, but gave no details as to when.'
"[Maryland] Attorney General Brian E. Frosh has registered his 'strong opposition' to permitting oil and gas drilling off the Atlantic coast, warning it could harm Maryland's beaches and the Chesapeake Bay.
"Dolphins are dying in unusually high numbers. Sea turtle nests are declining. Tuna are developing abnormally. And pelicans and gulls are still suffering from the lasting effects of a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico five years ago, the National Wildlife Federation warned in a report released Monday."
"James Osborn has just one question: 'Would you drink it?' 'It' being a mysterious brown sludge -- allegedly fracking fluid -- that Osborn brought in a foam cup to a public hearing in Sidney, Nebraska, in front of the state Oil and Gas Conservation Commission on Tuesday."
"California Governor Jerry Brown signed emergency legislation on Friday that fast-tracks over $1 billion in funding for drought relief and water infrastructure within the parched state."
"The Ohio General Assembly Wednesday passed a major new measure to clean up Lake Erie pollution and fight the harmful algal blooms that contaminated Toledo’s water last summer."
"As a concept, hydraulic fracturing has changed very little since the first wells were drilled in the late 1940s. In practice, however, what most people now know as fracking has undergone a transformation."
"Egypt and Sudan took another step toward cooperating with Ethiopia on the hydro-power dam it’s building on the Blue Nile river after the three nations’ leaders signed an accord on Monday."
"Scientists are looking for -- and finding -- little bits of plastic in a lot of places lately: ice cores, deep sea sediments, coral reefs, crab gills, the digestive system of mussels, even German beer. Now, new research suggests they need not actually be searching for the man-made material to discover it."
