As a battle brews over which U.S. waters are protected, environmental journalists can use an invaluable national database to pinpoint vulnerable wetlands. This week’s TipSheet has more on the National Wetlands Inventory, the backstory on wetlands protection, why it matters, and reporting resources and story ideas.
"Five weeks after historic flooding in the midwest, waters still cover pasturelands, corn and soybean fields. Much of the water has receded, but rivers still run high and washed out roads force people to take long detours. Residents in Missouri are putting their ruined possessions on the street and corn stalks heaped by floodwaters look like snowdrifts in the fields."
"New York State has banned offshore oil and natural gas drilling along its Atlantic coastal waters in an effort to block a Trump administration proposal."
"Aid workers in northern Mozambique scrambled planes and helicopters packed with aid to communities cut off, sometimes without any supplies, for at least two days after Cyclone Kenneth brought torrential rain to the region."
"The last time President Donald Trump sat down with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, the president walked out in a huff and dismissed their government shutdown talks as a “total waste of time.”"
"Sea creatures, especially those that live in shallower water near the coasts, are much more vulnerable to global warming than land animals, new research shows. The scientists found that local populations of marine animals are disappearing at double the rate of land-based species."
"After pressure from the Defense Department, the Environmental Protection Agency significantly weakened a proposed standard for cleaning up groundwater pollution caused by toxic chemicals that contaminate drinking water consumed by millions of Americans and that have been commonly used at military bases."
"The Trump administration on Thursday confirmed that it will likely delay the release of a long-awaited plan that had been expected to open most of the nation’s coastline for offshore oil drilling, pending the final outcome of a recent court decision that blocks drilling off the Alaskan coast."
"This time last year, most of Iraq’s historic marshlands were dry, desiccated by upstream damming and a chronic lack of rainfall."
"A California court has sided with a Southern California water district in a high-stakes case with a Native American tribe over access to groundwater."
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