"Deep in Gov. Scott Walker’s budget proposal is a seemingly benign item formalizing the transfer of 15 scientists within the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources."

"FLINT, Mich. — By the time Robert Skidmore, an 85-year-old former auto industry worker, died in late 2015, officials had seen signs for months that Flint was wrestling with outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease, prosecutors say. Yet despite a wave of such cases in 2014 and 2015, no public warning was issued until early 2016."

"TRAVERSE CITY, MI -- Native American tribes with treaty rights to natural resources north of Grand Rapids are quietly coordinating with Michigan officials who are deciding whether to let Nestle Waters North America extract more spring water from trout stream headwaters where the tribes have inland fishing rights."

"An agreement reached last year between the U.S. and Canada may force state and federal officials to impose new limits on the amount of fertilizer that can be applied by farmers in parts of Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan. The two countries are seeking to halve the amount of nutrients, mostly from farms, that wash into Lake Erie. High levels of nutrients can cause algae blooms that contaminate the lake, an important drinking water source."

"The chubby Cleveland toddler wears a long-sleeved purple shirt that proclaims she is 'Daddy's little darling.'"

"Rising nitrate levels in the Minnesota and Blue Earth Rivers are forcing Mankato to adjust how it provides drinking water to residents and potentially threatens the city's attempts to limit the amount of water it takes from the region's most critical aquifer."

"The activists also called on federal regulators to 'initiate an immediate review of horizontal drilling plans and procedures on all open pipeline dockets.'"

"More than 100 local and environmental groups are demanding federal regulators immediately halt all construction on Energy Transfer Partners' Rover gas pipeline after a series of environmental violations, including a massive spill that fouled sensitive wetlands in Ohio with several million gallons of construction mud.

"Northern Michigan's industrial past is returning to haunt the Petoskey waterfront, where environmental and public health officials are going door-to-door to test for poison vapors inside residences built on a Superfund site."

"With livestock-contamination of drinking water a growing concern in Wisconsin, the Department of Natural Resources has quietly started efforts to provide temporary water supplies to people with tainted wells."

"The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has curtailed work on a natural-gas pipeline in Ohio after the owner, Energy Transfer Partners, reported 18 leaks and spilled more than 2 million gallons of drilling materials."