Water & Oceans

"The US Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Wednesday in a case with high stakes for the Clean Water Act as environmentalists warn the justices may be poised to weaken the law."

"In 2017, Angela and Donald Brudos moved to a modest, ranch-style house where the Caloosahatchee River empties into the vast calm of the Gulf of Mexico. Despite Florida’s reputation for extreme weather, it held out the promise of an affordable paradise where they could retire."

"Alabama’s largest electric utility reached a settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency resolving two of three alleged violations stemming from one of its largest coal ash ponds. But the larger question—whether the 21.7 million cubic yards of coal ash in the pond will have to be excavated and moved to a lined landfill—remains unanswered."

"The federal government’s flood maps, which are used nationwide to signal areas vulnerable to inundation, vastly underestimated the flood risk faced by properties in the parts of North Carolina devastated by Hurricane Helene, according to data analyzed by The Washington Post."

"A Trump-era rollback of flood-protection rules has left critical infrastructure projects at higher risk, experts say."

"Weeks after being swept away in floodwaters, a North Carolina grandmother is among an untold number of victims who remain unaccounted for after Hurricane Helene."

"The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has granted preliminary approval for the use of a material that contains radioactive radium in a Florida road project that’s being described as a “pilot.”"

"In 2023, Alabama settled a civil rights complaint alleging that the state was discriminating against Black residents by not providing adequate sewage treatment in a poor, rural county. A year later, slow progress is being made to close the gap."

"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."