Water & Oceans

"Documents and interviews reveal that one Pa. water utility has already leased its watershed to gas drillers — and many others are being courted."

"A government report released Tuesday says states are underreporting violations of federal drinking-water standards, preventing the Environmental Protection Agency from enforcing rules aimed at protecting public health."

"The latest draft of guidelines for hydraulic fracturing in New York could open the door to drilling within 1,000 feet of aging underground tunnels that carry water to New York City -- a far cry from the seven-mile buffer once sought by city officials."

"The Republican-controlled House passed a bill Wednesday that would sharply curtail the federal government's role in protecting waters from pollution by barring the Environmental Protection Agency from overruling state decisions on water quality."

"Japan intends to send its whaling fleet back to the Antarctic this year, a senior official has told BBC News."

"A one-of-a-kind pod of about 200 'resident' eastern Pacific grey whales, which spends every summer feeding near Vancouver Island while the 20,000 other members of the species continue their epic annual migration between Mexico and Alaska, could hold the key to the evolutionary history of the majestic mammal -- and to its future in the age of climate change -- according to a new study."
 

"The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is taking an inventory of more than 30,000 coastal shipwrecks — some of them casualties of the 1942 Battle of the Atlantic — and identifying those that pose the most significant threat."