Climate change has undermined the risk calculations for dams. President Obama had a program to make dams more resilient, but President Trump plans to do away with this key dam safety program.
"OROVILLE, Calif. — The costs to repair the nation's tallest dam after a nearly catastrophic failure of the spillways will top $500 million, nearly double the original estimate of $275 million, a California Department of Water Resources official said Thursday."
"An oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last week may be the largest in the U.S. since the 2010 blowout at BP Plc’s Macondo well that sank the Deepwater Horizon rig and killed 11 people."
"Major dam and irrigation projects are drying up the wetlands that sustain life in the arid Sahel region of Africa. The result has been a wave of environmental refugees, as thousands of people flee, many on boats to Europe."
"One of the most powerful storms ever recorded in the northeastern Atlantic bore down on Ireland on Monday, unleashing strong winds and rain that killed at least three people and visited destruction on an island with little experience of such powerful storms."
"President Donald Trump’s administration has approved a company’s plan to build a water pipeline to carry billions of gallons from the Mojave Desert to California cities."
The SEJ has written the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to object to its criticism of an Associated Press story about Superfund sites following Hurricane Harvey floods. That, plus a judge rules against EPA for withholding records on the pesticide Enlist Duo, and more, in this month's WatchDog.
"Raw sewage is pouring into the rivers and reservoirs of Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. People without running water bathe and wash their clothes in contaminated streams, and some islanders have been drinking water from condemned wells."
"Top-ranking Congressional Democrats are calling on a federal watchdog to review whether Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt broke the law by making a video for a private group opposing an Obama-era clean-water rule."
"SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- One of the most eye-opening statistics in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria’s roar through here is that there were just 5,675 federal flood insurance policies on an island with nearly 1.57 million housing units."
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