Some California farmers are depleting the groundwater beneath their land faster than nature can recharge it -- and climate change is likely to make things worse. While farmers resist regulating groundwater use, critics argue that not doing it "could prove catastrophic to the state’s real estate sector and its $36 billion agricultural economy."

President Obama issued an executive order empowering EPA to set a more demanding timetable for cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay and to penalize states that fail to meet it.

"Iowa is about to launch its biggest assault ever on river and lake pollution -- a $455 million campaign."

EPA may regulate runoff from the coal ash and sludge from air-pollution-control that power plants store in ponds and piles.

"The Canadian Food Inspection Agency often finds problems with bottled water, but doesn't tell the public about them. Canada's federal food watchdog issued 29 recall notices for bottled water products between 2000 and early 2008, citing deficiencies such as contamination by bacteria, moulds, glass chips and trace amounts of arsenic. Of the recalls, affecting 49 different products, it issued a public warning in only seven cases, two of which came after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration made public its recall orders.