"FRESNO, Calif. -- Nitrate contamination of drinking water is a pervasive problem in California's agricultural heartland and is bound to intensify in the coming years, according to a University of California, Davis study released Tuesday."

"The world's water supply is being strained by climate change and the growing food, energy and sanitary needs of a fast-growing population, according to a United Nations study that calls for a radical rethink of policies to manage competing claims.

"Freshwater is not being used sustainably," UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova said in a statement. "Accurate information remains disparate, and management is fragmented ... the future is increasingly uncertain and risks are set to deepen."

"The average amount of ice covering the Great Lakes declined 71 percent over the past 40 winters, with Lake Superior ice down 79 percent, according to a report published by the American Meteorological Society.

'There was a significant downward trend in ice coverage from 1973 to the present for all of the lakes,' states the study appearing in the society’s Journal of Climate.

"WILLIAMSTOWN, Australia -- The whale conservation group Sea Shepherd is celebrating victory as Japan ends its whaling season with less than a third of its annual self-assigned quota."

"LUDINGTON, Mich. (AP) — On many a summer evening, Jim Fay joins dozens of onlookers on this tourist town's waterfront, exchanging friendly waves with passengers and crew members as the S.S. Badger chugs into the harbor after a 60-mile voyage across Lake Michigan from Manitowoc, Wis. It's a cherished ritual in Ludington, and its days may be numbered. "

"NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. — Niagara Falls has gone on record against treating wastewater from hydraulic fracturing, with elected officials saying they don't want the city that endured the Love Canal toxic waste crisis to be a test case for the technology used in gas drilling operations."

"More than two billion people have gained access to better drinking water sources, such as piped supplies and protected wells, between 1990 and 2010, UN officials said on Tuesday. The figure means the world has met the internationally agreed Millennium Development Goal to halve the proportion of people with no safe drinking water well ahead of a 2015 deadline, UNICEF and the World Health Organization said."

"HAGERSTOWN, Md. -- A 2009 federal study that concluded groundwater contamination from Fort Detrick was unlikely to have harmful health effects was flawed, a national scientific panel said Monday, prompting two U.S. senators to demand a faster cleanup of the Superfund site in Frederick [MD]."