"California’s drought has put the great Central Valley aquifer system under critical stress, but many of the world’s major groundwater basins are in far worse shape, a new satellite survey has found."

"DENVER — When Jason Story bought an old soy sauce barrel to collect the rain dripping from his downspout, he figured he had found an environmentally friendly way to water his garden’s beets and spinach. But under the quirks of Western water rules, where raindrops are claimed even as they tumble from the sky, he became a water outlaw."

Arizona's Navajo Generating Station, the largest power plant in the West, powers pumps that lift trillions of gallons of water out of the Colorado River and carry it 336 miles to fuel growth in Tucson and Phoenix. As the generators spin, they spew more more greenhouse gases than almost any other coal plant in the U.S.

"NOAA Fisheries' Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle has mobilized extra scientists to join a fisheries survey along the West Coast to chart an extensive harmful algal bloom that spans much of the West Coast and has triggered numerous closures of important shellfish fisheries in Washington, Oregon and California."

"Reports of oil spilling into Newfoundland's Port au Port Bay from old drilling sites is a growing concern for fishermen in the area."

"Here comes the rain again. Still reeling from record rainfall in May, Texas is back in the bull's-eye as Tropical Storm Bill formed in the northwest Gulf of Mexico on Monday night."

"For the first time in nearly 40 years, state regulators are telling more than 100 growers and irrigation districts with some of the oldest water rights in California that they have to stop drawing supplies from drought-starved rivers and streams in the Central Valley."