Water & Oceans

"After months of deliberations, state environmental regulators on Wednesday released long-awaited rules governing natural gas production in upstate New York, including provisions to oversee drilling operations near New York City’s water supplies."

"Hampton Roads Sanitation District, based in Virginia Beach, has agreed to pay a $900,000 civil fine and to take action to reduce alleged sanitary sewer overflows from its collection system and nine sewage treatment plants that have polluted the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries."

"Philadelphia Has Announced a $1.6 Billion Plan To Transform the City Over the Next 20 Years by Embracing Its Storm Water - Instead of Hustling It Down Sewers and Into Rivers as Fast as Possible."

"It All Starts Thursday With a Gentle Surge of Water To Be Released From Friant Dam Into the San Joaquin River. a Massive, Unprecedented and Unpredictable River Restoration Project Will Begin, Reawakening Miles of Dried Riverbed and Salmon Runs That Have Been Extinct for Six Decades."

"Over the last decade, the drinking water at thousands of schools across the country has been found to contain unsafe levels of lead, pesticides and dozens of other toxins."

"Recent research has the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) concerned that the huge quantities of metal, plastic, paint chips and other man-made debris floating at sea, hundreds and even thousands of miles from land, may be working their way into the American diet."

"Water managers, environmental agencies and conservation groups have been talking about cleaning up Lake Okeechobee for decades. The water quality has only gotten worse. Much worse."

"U.S. EPA has found 104 chemicals that might require regulations to keep them out of tap water -- the longest list of potential contaminants ever compiled by the agency."

"The Obama administration called Thursday for a comprehensive national system for regulating the use of federal waters along the nation’s marine and Great Lakes shores, now administered by a hodgepodge of federal, state or other agencies with often-conflicting goals."

"Runoff from all but the largest farms is essentially unregulated by many of the federal laws intended to prevent pollution and protect drinking water sources."