"JACKSONVILLE, N.C. -- As she flipped through the cemetery register, Mary Blakely's eyes filled with tears. On line after line, the entry read simply 'Baby Boy' or 'Baby Girl,' followed by a surname and a burial date."

"If the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency isn’t going to ensure Seattle’s Duwamish River is clean enough for needy residents to fish there for their dinner, the agency needs to ensure those people get fish some other way – even if that means supplying seafood through food banks. Or building clean urban fishing ponds. Or giving people shares in a seafood cooperative akin to a community-supported-agriculture operation."

"Fish and other sea life have been moving toward Earth’s poles in search of cooler waters, part of a worldwide, decades-long migration documented for the first time by a study released Wednesday."

"Two controversial amendments related to the National Flood Insurance Program will not be taken up as part of the Water Resources Development Act, which [was] on track for a final vote [Tuesday] evening after senators reached a last-minute agreement on amendments to be considered." [The Senate did not complete work on the bill Tuesday and will resume work Wednesday.]

Many Americans still lack clean tap water -- but federal and state governments can't provide it, for a number of reasons.

"One of the two dams on the Elwha River has been completely removed and there are about 50 feet of the remaining Glines Canyon dam left. Already so much sediment has been released that its clogged up and shut down one of the water treatment plants in nearby Port Angeles, temporarily halting the largest dam removal project in U.S. history."

"Acidification is an additional stress on an ecosystem already under pressure from rapid sea ice loss, study warns."

"The Arctic ecosystem, already under pressure from record ice melts, faces another potential threat in the form of rapid acidification of the ocean, according to an international study published on Monday.

"Behold the tiny oyster. No, not on the half-shell, with a squirt of lemon, but in its watery habitat, the Choptank River. Out there on a reef with many other oysters, the bivalve is awesome, a janitor that helps remove pollution with incredible efficiency."