"Babies whose mothers consume nitrates in drinking water have a higher risk of spina bifida, cleft palate and other birth defects, according to a large study of children in Texas and Iowa. Used as fertilizers on crops, nitrates are one of the most widespread chemical contaminants in aquifers around the world. The study is the first to compare birth defects in kids to their mothers’ consumption of nitrates-tainted drinking water during pregnancy."

"A meeting of 24 nations and the European Union in mid-July will decide the fate of two proposed ocean reserves in Antarctica."

"The shale drilling boom that has helped create a huge supply of cheap natural gas continues to bring more and more fracking waste into Ohio."

"Drought, heavy rain increase amount of chemical in rivers."

"From California to the Great Lakes, persistent water pollution shows that no beach is an island when it comes to public health threats like hepatitis, dysentery and stomach flu."

"A tiny wedge of land jammed between Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean sea, the Gaza Strip is heading inexorably into a water crisis that the United Nations says could make the Palestinian enclave unliveable in just a few years."

"AMSTERDAM -- Australia will try to persuade judges that Japan's scientific whaling program is commercial whaling in disguise in a case between the countries that opens in The Hague on Wednesday."

"Natural gas has likely seeped into Northeast Pennsylvania water supplies from both deep gas drilling and natural processes, researchers at Duke University reported in a paper released Monday."

"While residents of Medicine Hat anxiously wait for swelling river waters to recede, flooding in Calgary has left the city’s economy in shambles."

"A large concrete water main that exploded this spring along busy Connecticut Avenue in Chevy Chase has brought to light a little known local distinction: The Maryland suburbs have more of a notoriously problematic stock of pipe than almost any major U.S. water utility."