Water & Oceans

"JOHNSON, Kan. -- The prairie wind buffeted Brant Peterson as he stood in a half-dead field of winter wheat."

"The federal administrators and elected leaders overseeing the restoration of the Chesapeake Bay say there are signs that the watershed is getting cleaner. But environmental advocates say the restoration process is falling dangerously behind schedule."

"Santa Barbara City Council members on Tuesday unanimously approved spending $55 million to reactivate a mothballed desalination plant that could provide the city with nearly a third of its drinking water."

"Idaho fisheries managers will not follow the lead of neighboring states in restricting catch-and-release angling, despite a drought and heat wave that have killed or stressed large numbers of trout and other fish."

"WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been getting battered by industry and farm groups – as well as half the states in the nation – for allegedly going too far in its recent clean water rule."

"The U.S. House voted Wednesday to grant states the authority to regulate the disposal of ash from coal-fired power plants and to roll back some of the new federal safety standards scheduled to take effect later this year."

"The Obama administration cleared the way on Wednesday for Shell to start drilling in the Arctic Ocean this summer, but the safety restrictions it is imposing could slow the pace at which rigs strike oil."

"Intense drought conditions have shrunk the kernels and disrupted the proteins of winter wheat crops in Montana, Washington, Oregon and Idaho, the region that produces a fifth of the U.S. harvest."

"Below the center of Butte flows water tainted with poisons drawn from a mass of mining and smelting waste that has been a pollution problem for more than a century."