Latest Water quality News
Cleanup underway of oil spill in a Louisiana bay
HOUMA, La. (AP) — An oil spill cleanup is underway at a site where an oil tank platform collapsed in a Louisiana bay, the Coast Guard said. The spill of crude oil occurred at Hilcorp’s Caillou Island facility in Terrebonne Bay, Louisiana, according to a news release emailed late...
1st sea turtle nest found on Mississippi beach since 2018
PASS CHRISTIAN, Miss. (AP) — Beach crews have found the first sea turtle nest on the Mississippi mainland in four years. A Harrison County Sand Beach crew that was cleaning up found what appeared to be turtle tracks just east of the Pass Christian Harbor, officials said. ...
Microplastics increasingly found in Colorado's snowpack
DENVER (AP) — As the focus on the electron microscope resolved, Richard Reynolds found himself feeling more resigned than surprised. The slide before him was a snowpack sample collected from pristine Colorado high country. The sample revealed, at intense magnification, the...
Pipeline developer pleads no contest in pollution cases
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The developer of a major pipeline system that connects the Marcellus Shale gas field in western Pennsylvania to an export terminal near Philadelphia pleaded no contest Friday to criminal charges that it systematically polluted waterways and residential water wells across...
DNR investigates oil contamination in northern Wisconsin
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The state Department of Natural Resources is investigating contaminated soil near the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Reservation in far northern Wisconsin. DNR officials said Enbridge Inc. reported Wednesday that a contractor had encountered soil suspected to...
Honolulu utility finds chemical in Red Hill monitoring well
HONOLULU (AP) — The Honolulu Board of Water Supply said Thursday it has detected a small amount of a chemical naturally occurring in coal, crude oil and gasoline in a monitoring well near a Navy fuel storage facility that spilled jet fuel last year. The utility said in a news...
Drought, sluggish Mississippi River make small dead zone
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Drought made the Mississippi River sluggish and led to a smaller than average dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico — an area where there’s too little oxygen to support marine life, the scientist who's been measuring it for decades said Wednesday. Each year,...
California spares coastal power plant owner from fines
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The owner of an aging gas-fired power plant along California's southern coast won't be required to pay fines for some water pollution it causes through 2023, state water officials voted Tuesday. The Redondo Beach Generating Station is one of four coastal...
Review: How to stop industrial farming from ruining Earth
“Regenesis: Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet,” by George Monbiot (Penguin Random House) Cruising past farmlands in America — and elsewhere in the world — it’s hard to imagine that so much green could be so damaging to the Earth. But author George Monbiot makes...
California not counting methane leaks from idle wells
California claims to know how much climate-warming gas is going into the air from within its borders. It's the law: California limits climate pollution and each year the limits get stricter. The state has also been a major oil and gas producer for more than a century, and...
