Water & Oceans

"The Yukon Water Board is asking the public to weigh in as the territory considers legislation to protect remaining undisturbed wetlands from small-scale gold mining in streams and riverbeds".

"The Indian River watershed, which used to provide “sweeping” wetland habitat south of Dawson City, Yukon, has been all but destroyed by placer mining, Darren Taylor, Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation’s director of natural resources, told the territory’s water board during a recent virtual hearing.

"The Federal Emergency Management Agency is proposing to slash disaster aid to states by making it substantially harder for them to qualify for assistance after extreme weather events like floods, wildfires or storms."

"Researchers believe they have found a previously unknown species of beaked whale in waters off Mexico’s western coast. If confirmed, the new species would mark a significant discovery among giant mammals."

"In some rare good news from the top of the world, bowhead whale populations have rebounded and are nearing pre-commercial whaling numbers in US waters."

"A U.S.-funded project using satellites to track and publish water levels at Chinese dams on the Mekong river was announced on Monday, adding to the superpowers’ rivalry in Southeast Asia."

"Today, an unusually broad coalition of environmental groups, numbering more than 550, called on the incoming Biden-Harris administration to address plastic pollution alongside fossil fuels, releasing an eight-point platform that largely focuses on ways the next administration could act without a Democratic majority in the Senate."

"The Gulf of Mexico is littered with tens of thousands of abandoned oil and gas wells, and toothless regulation leaves climate warming gas emissions unchecked."