Water & Oceans

"The U.S. suffered 15 billion-dollar weather disasters during the first half of 2025, said insurance broker Gallagher Re in its latest quarterly report issued July 16. The average number of January-June inflation-adjusted billion-dollar disasters over the previous 10 years in the U.S. was 15; the record was 23, set in 2024. The Gallagher Re quarterly reports help fill a void left by the elimination of NOAA’s program to track billion-dollar weather disasters, which was terminated this year."

"A megadrought has sapped water supplies, ravaged farms and ranches, and fueled wildfires across the American Southwest for going on 25 years. Not in 12 centuries has the region been so dry for so long."

"The Environmental Protection Agency said on Thursday that it would give utility companies an additional year to begin cleaning up contamination from toxic coal ash landfills across the country."

"A dozen rivers are subject to “hoot owl” restrictions on afternoon fishing or all-out closures as biologists grapple with warming rivers and meager streamflows."

"Eliminating obsolete or unsafe dams could help bolster community safety amid climate-induced weather extremes, watershed experts are recommending."

"The Commerce Department has indefinitely suspended work on a tool to help communities predict how rising global temperatures will alter the frequency of extreme rainfall, according to three current and former federal officials familiar with the decision, a move that experts said will make the country more vulnerable to storms supercharged by climate change."

"The silvery water of the Royal River glistens as sunlight strikes its surface on an overcast afternoon. The modest waterway flows an easy 39 miles from southern Maine’s Sabbathday Lake to the Atlantic coast at Casco Bay, attracting kayakers, paddleboarders, and great blue heron."

"Officials are shoring up water systems infiltrated by the golden mussel. Dogs and human inspectors are checking boats at some lakes, but a patchwork of oversight leaves many lakes unprotected. “There’s just too many boats and too many people out there,” one warden said." 

"Wetlands provide freshwater, food, storm protection and climate regulation. Yet over the last 50 years, humans have destroyed one-fifth of them." "A landmark report for the global agreement on wetlands paints a dire picture of the state of the world’s water bodies that underpin all life on Earth."