Water & Oceans

"Could the [Fort Meyers] region have been spared some of the damage with more aggressive planning and zoning? “Yes,” planners and resilience experts say. Sound land use planning builds stronger communities — physically, socially and politically. Yet Florida lawmakers effectively killed the state’s ability to check urban sprawl a decade ago with the passage of a reform measure called the 2011 Community Planning Act."

"Less than six months after rejecting a proposal for a major desalination plant in Huntington Beach, the California Coastal Commission on Thursday approved plans for a different, smaller project in Orange County that could serve as a model for future projects."

"Some cities around the world are pulling back from shorelines, as rising seas from climate change increase flooding. But so far, retreat appears out of the question for Atlantic City, New Jersey."

"A Hydro-Quebec subsidiary is buying a company that operates 13 hydropower generating stations in Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, strengthening its relationship with New England."

"Maine lobster fishermen have hired a former high-ranking U.S. Department of Justice official to represent them in their case against new laws intended to protect whales."

"Climate change may be having more impact on the melting Greenland ice sheet than previously thought, new Scottish-led research suggests."

"With a megadrought persisting in the Southwest, El Paso and other cities on the Rio Grande are scrambling to find alternative sources of water and are turning to innovative approaches — desalination, transporting water via pipelines, and “toilet-to-tap” wastewater recycling."

"A paper published Tuesday in the journal Geophysical Research Letters finds that it’s raining harder in most of the United States. The study, written by researchers at Northwestern University, tied the results to climate change and to warmer air’s ability to hold more water."

"Alaska officials have canceled the fall Bristol Bay red king crab harvest, and in a first-ever move, also scuttled the winter harvest of smaller snow crab."

"When Hurricane Ian roared ashore the Southwest Florida coast last week, it hit one of the fastest growing areas in the nation that's been fueled by sunshine and paved with lax growth management rules."