Water & Oceans

"The 53,000 water utilities in the United States deliver some of the safest drinking water in the world — a public health victory of unrivaled success that began in 1908 with chlorination campaigns in Jersey City and Chicago. Still, millions of individual cases of waterborne diseases occur annually and related hospitalization costs approach $1 billion each year. In 2007 and 2008, the most recent years for which figures are available, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recorded 164 waterborne disease outbreaks, almost entirely from protozoan cysts of the parasite Cryptosporidium."

"Across the high plains, many farmers depend on underground stores of water, and they worry about wells going dry. A new scientific study of western Kansas lays out a predicted timeline for those fears to become reality. But it also shows an alternative path for farming in Kansas: The moment of reckoning can be delayed, and the impact softened, if farmers start conserving water now."

"Detroit is already failing its citizens. Climate change is compounding the woe. With downpours up 45 percent in the past 50 years, the city's outdated sewer system can't handle the flow."

"Experts claim current rate of change is likely to be more than 10 times faster than it has ever been in Earth's history."

"FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- With inviting beaches that run for miles along South Florida’s shores, it is easy to put sand into the same category as turbo air-conditioning and a decent mojito — something ever present and easily taken for granted."

"The blaze, now 134,000 acres, pushes into Yosemite National Park. Each day, what it does depends on the wind."

"California public health officials suggest limiting hexavalent chromium in drinking water to 10 parts per billion. Environmentalists say that's not nearly strict enough."

"Ronald Gertson usually plants about 3,000 acres of rice each year on his family farm in Wharton County, Texas. But because of emergency water regulations set in 2012 due to central Texas' painfully persistent drought, Gertson could plant about 40 percent of that land."

"WASHINGTON, DC -- A dam that has blocked Maryland’s Patapsco River for nearly 100 years will be removed shortly, utilizing a $3.57 million grant awarded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Restoration Center to the nonprofit organization American Rivers."

"Activists condemn refusal to allow Arctic Sunrise icebreaker entry to Northern Sea Route as attempt to stifle peaceful protest."