Water & Oceans

"When you hear about dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico and the Great Lakes, they’re largely caused by pollution draining from the farm belt. It can take a long time and a lot of money to reduce pollution at factories. So they’re starting to pay farmers to cut pollution instead."

"An El Nino weather pattern this year appears almost certain, Australia's Bureau of Meteorology said on Wednesday in a revised forecast, raising the prospect of drought in Australia and a even weaker monsoon in India."

"A bill introduced earlier this month would bring federal oversight of hydraulic fracturing fluids -- chemical mixtures pumped at high pressure into oil and gas wells in order to unlock deposits trapped deep underground."

"A plan to cap a vast, long-neglected deposit of the pesticide DDT on the ocean floor off Southern California got its first public airing Tuesday."

Scientists are forecasting that the pollution-caused 'dead zone' in the Gulf of Mexico this summer could be one of the largest on record.