Water & Oceans

"BP and the oil industry drilling in the Gulf of Mexico lacked the proper safety attitude to handle the large risks of deepwater drilling, leading to the many bad decisions behind the nation's worst offshore spill, a panel of expert engineers said today.

More specifically, the industry needs to radically redesign the blowout preventers that are meant to be a last line of defense against runaway wells or else risk a repeat of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, the National Academy of Engineering concluded.

"A monstrous bloom of toxic algae looming across the Texas coast has shut down oyster season. Fueled by Texas' ongoing drought, the algae — known as Karenia brevis— thrives in warm, salty water and has spread through the bays and islands along Texas' 350-mile coast, says Meridith Byrd, a marine biologist for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. The algae could cause nausea, vomiting and diarrhea in humans and is harmful to fish but not fatal to people, she says."

"Heavy rains routinely trigger big sewage overflows in Baltimore, but there is growing evidence that chronic leaks from the region's aging, cracked sewer lines are a bigger threat to public health."

"CHEYENNE - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday for the first time that fracking - a controversial method of improving the productivity of oil and gas wells - may be to blame for causing groundwater pollution."

"Montana's rivers are pristine and iconic, but they are also at the center of a property rights dispute that wound up before the Supreme Court on Wednesday. Gwen Ifill discusses the details of the dispute with Marcia Coyle of The National Law Journal."

"NEW ORLEANS -- The Obama administration has released a report on how the Gulf Coast can be restored following the nation's worst offshore oil spill after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion off the coast of Louisiana in April 2010. The report from the White House's Gulf of Mexico Ecosystem Restoration Task Force comes out the same week Congress considers a bill designed to handle billions of dollars in Clean Water Act fines BP is expected to pay for the release of more than 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf."

"Marine scientists are trying to find out why previously unknown blooms of toxic algae are suddenly proliferating along the California coast, killing wildlife and increasing the risk of human sickness."

"A federal appeals court today rejected nearly all the claims environmentalists had made against an Army Corps of Engineers decision to issue a permit for a major development in Florida wetlands."

"Women who drink water contaminated with low levels of the weed-killer atrazine may be more likely to have irregular menstrual cycles and low estrogen levels, scientists concluded in a new study. The most widely used herbicide in the United States, atrazine is frequently detected in surface and ground water, particularly in agricultural areas of the Midwest. The newest research, which compared women in Illinois farm towns to women in Vermont, adds to the growing scientific evidence linking atrazine to altered hormones."