"Large swaths of toxic algae have punished U.S. coastal towns at record levels this year, shutting down shellfish harvests and sickening swimmers from Maine to Texas to Seattle."

The first robot to cross the Atlantic Ocean is a prototype that may offer dramatic new opportunities for measuring the ocean's properties at various depths -- a key to better understanding of climate change, as well as an aid to hurricane prediction, fishing, and shipping.

"The Department of the Interior will undertake an experimental initiative to improve the management of Glen Canyon Dam and the Colorado River as it flows through Grand Canyon National Park, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced Thursday during the Colorado River Water Users Association conference."

"U.S. EPA unveiled plans today to improve the quality of drinking water in schools and small communities by targeting the most serious violations and assisting rural systems that struggle to meet federal standards."

"More than 20 percent of the nation’s water treatment systems have violated key provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act over the last five years, according to a New York Times analysis of federal data."

The Army Corps of Engineers is teaming up with The Nature Conservancy to change the way the Willamette River flows as part of their "Sustainable Rivers Project.

"Nearly 28 years after Congress authorized the Army Corps of Engineers to deepen the Delaware River's main shipping channel, the only thing about the project that has deepened is the controversy."

"The U.S. Supreme Court hears a major property rights case Wednesday, a case from Florida that pits the state's need to prevent beach erosion against the rights of property owners to keep ownership of the land at the water's edge."

"An El Nino weather pattern warming the Pacific Ocean and linked to drought in South Asia is likely to continue through the first quarter of 2010, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Tuesday."

"The 2009 Atlantic hurricane season ended Monday without a hurricane landing on U.S. shores and with the fewest named storms in 12 years, according to the National Hurricane Center."

New testing by EPA has strengthened the case that World War II-era copper mining may have caused uranium and arsenic contamination of some Nevada wells.

"U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle today said he will approve a legal settlement that calls for the federal government to set specific water quality standards for nutrients in Florida."

"Researchers have pinpointed the source of what is probably the worst mass poisoning in history, according to a study published Sunday. For nearly three decades scientists have struggled to figure out exactly how arsenic was getting into the drinking water of millions of people in rural Bangladesh."

"Ocean acidification, caused by rising CO2 levels, is affecting not only coral reefs, but coastal ecosystems by changing everything from the ability of oysters to adhere to the riverbed to the extent of dead zones along the U.S. Pacific coast."

"A report shows concentrations of several major pesticides mostly declined or remained the same in the U.S. 'Corn Belt' rivers and streams from 1996 to 2006."