Water & Oceans

"The Dungeness crab fishery could decline West Coastwide, a new study has found, threatening a fishing industry worth nearly a quarter-billion dollars a year."

"The NAACP has filed a federal lawsuit against Michigan and its governor on behalf of the residents and businesses in Flint, where high levels of lead in the drinking water has created a health crisis."

"A Houston-based pipeline company has been indicted in California on 46 criminal charges stemming from a major oil spill last year that forced beach closures and fouled miles of shoreline near Santa Barbara, prosecutors said on Tuesday."

"The world’s smallest porpoise, the vaquita, is slipping closer to extinction despite the Mexican Navy’s efforts to protect it and its habitat from illegal fishing, experts have warned."

"As [North Carolina] state regulators prepare to release risk assessments of Duke Energy coals ash waste impoundments this week, a state health official divulged that some health officials opposed the state’s reversal of warning that drinking wells near the waste posed health risks."

"The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected Exxon Mobil Corp's appeal of a $236 million judgment against the oil company in a case brought by the state of New Hampshire over groundwater contamination linked to a gasoline additive."

"Tukaram Jadhav was barely surviving off of his tiny cotton farm when he killed himself last September. His widow, a petite mother of two, pulls her purple sari tightly around her, and says she discovered her husband as he lay dying."

"U.S. EPA officials began discussing worrisome water quality test results found in Flint, Mich., in early 2015, according to emails released by the agency."

"Alarmed by chronic problems with lead-contaminated water in downstate Galesburg, federal officials are urging local officials to provide bottled water or filters to residents where testing at household taps found high levels of the toxic metal. Though the small Knox County city stands out for repeatedly exceeding U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lead standards, a Tribune analysis of state data has identified about 170 other public water systems in Illinois — serving about 700,000 people in all — where test results exceeded federal standards during at least one year since 2004."

"Vessels continued to skim oil off the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday after about 88,200 gallons of oil were released from a Shell flow line about 90 miles off the coast of Louisiana."