Water & Oceans

"Floodwaters in the Pacific Northwest have inundated homes, forced rescues and shuttered schools as a trio of deluges set rainfall records."

"President Biden signed a $1 trillion infrastructure bill into law on Monday afternoon, a bipartisan victory that will pour billions into the nation’s roads, ports and power lines."

"Environmentalists are accusing the president of breaking a campaign promise to ban new federal fossil fuel leasing. The administration says its hands are tied."

"For decades, chronic flooding and nuclear waste have encroached on the ancestral lands in southeastern Minnesota that the Prairie Island Indian Community calls home, whittling them to about a third of their original size."

"A group of Benton Harbor residents filed a federal class action lawsuit Wednesday against city and state officials, saying they didn’t do enough to protect them against lead in some of the city’s drinking water."

"Tangier Island, home to a Virginia fishing town and about 400 people, could be saturated by rising seas and convert to uninhabitable wetlands by 2051, according to an analysis released Monday.

The tiny island, which drew national attention for its residents’ support of former President Donald Trump and skepticism of climate change, is one of many Chesapeake Bay islands sinking because of local sea level rise and subsidence. People have lived on the island since the 18th century, but the residents could soon face displacement.

"A judge on Wednesday approved a $626 million deal to settle lawsuits filed by Flint residents who found their tap water contaminated by lead following disastrous decisions to switch the city’s water source and a failure to swiftly acknowledge the problem."

"Southern California’s largest urban water district declared a drought emergency on Tuesday and called for local water suppliers to immediately cut the use of water from the State Water Project."

"The Justice Department today [Tuesday] announced a landmark investigation into wastewater issues in an Alabama county that is home to prominent environmental justice activist Catherine Flowers.

Flowers, who now serves as a White House environmental justice adviser, detailed the sewage problems that plagued Lowndes County, Ala., in her book "Waste: One Woman’s Fight Against America’s Dirty Secret."

"Since 2019, more than 320 toxic substances have been detected in U.S. drinking water systems, according to a new analysis by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a nonprofit environmental advocacy organization."