The Fate Of Thousands Of U.S. Rural Dams Hangs In The Balance
"Dams across the country are aging and facing intensifying floods wrought by climate change. But the price tag to fix what’s broken is estimated in the hundreds of billions of dollars."
"Dams across the country are aging and facing intensifying floods wrought by climate change. But the price tag to fix what’s broken is estimated in the hundreds of billions of dollars."
"Floods caused by intense rains have resulted in 339 deaths and displaced more than 1.1 million people in Niger since June, while also causing devastating damage to the Sahel nation's critical resources, cultural sites, and schools."
"Bridgette Bello thought she’d taken proper precautions to protect against Florida’s notorious hurricanes, having purchased flood insurance as well as a separate hurricane-specific policy, in addition to her regular homeowners coverage. Yet nearly two weeks after Helene hit — and even before Milton had arrived — what Bello, 54, describes as an insurance “nightmare” has only begun."
"More than 4,500 square miles of ocean will soon be protected by the federal government off the Central California coast. The Biden administration is creating a new national marine sanctuary, which will be the third largest in the U.S. The sanctuary is also the first to be led by Indigenous people."
"The brutal wind and torrential rainfall of Hurricane Milton that killed 16 people in Florida this week were worsened by human-caused climate change, a team of international scientists said on Friday."
"The state estimates one or more pesticides are found in around 43 percent of 800,000 private wells in Wisconsin, and more than half of the pesticides detected aren’t regulated in groundwater by the state or federal governments."
"As Hurricane Milton pummeled Florida’s west coast with powerful winds and flooding rain, environmentalists worry it could scatter the polluted leftovers of the state’s phosphate fertilizer mining industry and other hazardous waste across the peninsula and into vulnerable waterways."
"A fossil fuel giant with deep ties to Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, along with other powerful pro-business groups, are explicitly pressuring Gorsuch and his fellow justices to rule in favor of oil and gas interests in an upcoming Supreme Court case."
"Floridians are picking up the pieces after Milton made landfall as a dangerous Category 3 hurricane and cut through the state as a Category 1 storm before moving offshore. In some areas, such as St. Petersburg, the storm represented a more than a 1-in-1000 year rainfall event."
"Even greater efforts to strip carbon dioxide from the atmosphere will fail to avert climate change catastrophe as rising global temperatures threaten to cross a key threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), scientists said on Wednesday."