"DALLAS - Suffering from the nation's deadliest outbreak of West Nile virus this year, Dallas County authorized aerial spraying of insecticide on Friday for the first time in nearly five decades to help fight the mosquito-born illness."

"Faced with a booming population and a disappearing water supply, the city of San Antonio responded by dramatically cutting consumption, pioneering new storage techniques and investing in water recycling and desalination projects. It now boasts that it is 'Water's Most Resourceful City.'"

"FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has issued its final rule aimed at cleaning up the largest single source of haze-causing pollutants in the country."

"Work was scarce for architect David Mullican and many Galveston Island builders after hurricane Ike. As damages were assessed, insurance claims disputed and homes were repaired piecemeal, Mullican was out of work for more than a year."

"OKLAHOMA CITY -- Some Oklahoma residents have returned to emergency shelters despite evacuation orders in many areas of the state being lifted, as wildfires continued to burn."

"OKLAHOMA CITY -- More than 64 temperature records were broken in Oklahoma during a scorching July, and additional ones fell across the state Wednesday on the first day of August, according to the National Climatic Data Center."

"GALVESTON - With the world focused on a BP rig explosion in the spring of 2010 that caused the worst oil spill in U.S. history, a massive release of pollutants from the company's Texas City refinery went largely unnoticed."

"PRAGUE, Okla. -- Jerri Loveland sees a connection between the oil drilling that surrounds her home and the earthquake last November that upended her life."

"Flares, leaking pipelines and tanks emitted 92,000 tons of toxic chemicals into the air during accidents, break-downs and maintenance at Texas oil and gas facilities, refineries and petrochemical plants over the past three years, finds a report released today by the nonprofit Environmental Integrity Project, EIP."

"They pray for rain these days across a drought-stricken American west. The very idea – a light shower, even an inch of rain – fills Walter Dasheno with dread. Dasheno is the governor of the Santa Clara pueblo, a Native American community living just below a canyon of the same name."

"A new water-purification system using solar power to purify contaminated groundwater holds promise for solving water problems not only on the Navajo Nation, where it is being tested, but for many other indigenous communities as well."

"In Texas, there is still the drought against which all other droughts are measured: the seven-year dry spell in the 1950s. It was so devastating that agriculture losses exceeded those of the Dust Bowl years, and so momentous that it kicked off the modern era of water planning in Texas."

"The historic Texas drought caused the Ogallala Aquifer to experience its largest decline in 25 years across a large swath of the Texas Panhandle, new numbers from a water district show."

"Thousands flee homes as western wildfires persist. Colorado's Governor Gary Herbert estimates the fire has caused millions of dollars worth of damage. Soot and smoke also worry residents."

"MANITOU SPRINGS, Colo. -- Searing, record-setting heat in the interior West didn't loosen its grip on firefighters struggling to contain blazes in Colorado, Utah and other Rocky Mountain states. Colorado has endured nearly a week of 100-plus degree days and low humidity, sapping moisture from timber and grass, creating a devastating formula for volatile wildfires across the state and punishing conditions for firefighters."