"The 53,000 water utilities in the United States deliver some of the safest drinking water in the world — a public health victory of unrivaled success that began in 1908 with chlorination campaigns in Jersey City and Chicago. Still, millions of individual cases of waterborne diseases occur annually and related hospitalization costs approach $1 billion each year. In 2007 and 2008, the most recent years for which figures are available, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recorded 164 waterborne disease outbreaks, almost entirely from protozoan cysts of the parasite Cryptosporidium."

"Detroit is already failing its citizens. Climate change is compounding the woe. With downpours up 45 percent in the past 50 years, the city's outdated sewer system can't handle the flow."

"Maryland officials pulled back a proposed regulation Monday aimed at reducing farm runoff polluting the Chesapeake Bay after chicken growers warned it could cripple the state's lucrative poultry industry if imposed now."

"WATERFLOW — The sickness came in increments, a slow onslaught of weight loss, stomach pain and extreme diarrhea."

"CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Obama administration officials on Friday proposed to update the federal government's 42-year-old exposure limits for silica dust, a move the Labor Department said would prevent 700 deaths and 1,600 new cases of silicosis every year. The proposal would provide new protections for 2.2 million American workers, cutting in half the legal limit for dust exposure on the job."

"California public health officials suggest limiting hexavalent chromium in drinking water to 10 parts per billion. Environmentalists say that's not nearly strict enough."

"As evidence mounts that excessive use of light is harming wildlife and adversely affecting human health, new initiatives in France and elsewhere are seeking to turn down the lights that flood an ever-growing part of the planet."

"WASHINGTON -- New Environmental Protection Agency chief Gina McCarthy plans to visit the site of Alaska’s proposed Pebble Mine next week as she decides whether to block the massive project to protect one of the world’s last big runs of wild salmon."

"An advisory panel to Tokyo Electric Power Co. urged the utility to tighten water-management procedures at its crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant weeks before 300 metric tons of radioactive water seeped out, the panel’s chairman said."

"Residents have complained for years about thick black smoke and possible pollution coming from the MarkWest gas plant in Chartiers. But the state Department of Environmental Protection said it couldn't take action because it had no evidence. On Tuesday, the department said it had the goods."