Water & Oceans

"Along the Missouri, John Remus controls a network of dams that dictates the fate of millions. ‘It was not designed to handle this.’"

"There were no good choices for John Remus, yet he had to choose.

Should he try to hold back the surging Missouri River but risk destroying a major dam, potentially releasing a 45-foot wall of water? Or should he relieve the pressure by opening the spillway, purposefully adding to the flooding of towns, homes and farmland for hundreds of miles.

"Climate change played a hand in the deadly floods in the U.S. upper Midwest that have damaged crops and drowned livestock, scientists said on Thursday, while a Trump administration official said more homework was needed before making that link."

"Executives at Vale SA, the world’s largest iron ore miner, quashed efforts by Brazilian authorities to audit one of the company’s mining dams months before it collapsed and killed over 300 people, a state prosecutor was quoted as saying by news website G1 on Wednesday."

"The U.S. Army has put a price tag on releasing the results of water tests for a dangerous contaminant at military installations: nearly $300,000."

"Fish in the Cuyahoga River, which became synonymous with pollution when it caught fire in Cleveland in 1969, are now safe to eat, federal environmental regulators say."

"As part of its proposed budget for next year, the Trump administration wants to expand an EPA program that gives states regulatory authority for coal ash disposal."

"A growing number of cities are looking beyond the usual 100-year floodplain and requiring more homes to be built higher for their own protection. "

"Faced with reservoirs less than half full along the Colorado River, federal authorities and negotiators for Colorado and six other Western states on Tuesday finalized a landmark plan to share the burden of voluntarily using less water as growing cities and warming temperatures deplete the supply for 40 million people."