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The Latest on Water
Chicago Tribune, Andrew Martin
Published April 9, 2006
A new study on Monday found that a relatively small percentage of rural counties – many of them in Illinois – are contributing most of the fertilizer pollution that is creating a summertime “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico, where massive algae blooms snuff out most aquatic life.
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Farm Futures, Jacqui Fatka
Published April 9, 2006
Nitrate pollution in the Mississippi River Basin is a growing problem, creating a Dead Zone downstream for marine wildlife. A new analysis from the Environmental Working Group shows that the problem is more solvable than it ever has looked before if the federal government begins to focus conservation needs in the trouble area.
Read MoreArkansas Democrat-Gazette, Nancy Cole
Published April 10, 2006
Farmers in 15 northeast Arkansas counties are among the top contributors of fertilizer pollution that creates a "dead zone" of more than 5, 000 square miles in the Gulf of Mexico, according to a study released Monday by the Environmental Working Group.
Read MoreNew Orleans Times-Picayune, Matthew Brown
Published April 16, 2006
Louisiana's fishing industry faces an uncertain future after the pounding it took last hurricane season, but fishers know one thing is certain: Sometime this summer, a lifeless expanse of water about the size of Connecticut -- maybe a little bigger, maybe a little smaller -- will form off the state's coast.
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Delta Farm Press, David Bennett
Published May 4, 2006
In what could be the first significant shot fired in the 2007 farm bill debate, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) has released a report on how Mississippi River Basin (MRB) fertilizer run-off is contributing to a massive oxygen-depleted hypoxia zone in the Gulf of Mexico.
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Reuters
Published May 4, 2006
More than half of US streams are polluted, with the worst conditions found in the eastern third of the country, according to a study by the Environmental Protection Agency.
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Minnesota Pilot-Independent, Babe Winkelman
Published June 19, 2006
What grows larger with each passing summer and is roughly the size of New Jersey? The answer: the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, one of the world's most dynamic fisheries.
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Peoria Journal Star, Steve Tarter
Published June 25, 2006
It's an area the size of Connecticut that fails to harbor aquatic life in the Gulf of Mexico.
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Aberdeen American, Larry Gabriel
Published August 24, 2006
If you have not heard of it, you will. The mass media is blaming "agriculture" for a predicted increase in the size of the so-called "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico.
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Bakersfield Californian, Bill Walker
Published October 29, 2005
In his recent Community Voices column, the president of Westlands Water District blasted Environmental Working Group's investigation of the district's proposed federal water subsidies contract.
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Federal regulators are negotiating an agricultural water contract in the Central Valley, the latest of several dozen deals that could tie up water resources for the next 50 years. Thursday is the public's last day to comment on the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's proposal to renew its long-term contract with Westlands Water District, which provides water to some 800 farms in Fresno and Kings counties.
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After 50 years of legal infighting, a victor has emerged in California's water wars -- agriculture. A decade after environmentalists prevailed in getting more fresh water down the north state's rivers and estuaries to improve fisheries and wildlife habitat, farmers are again triumphant. Central Valley irrigation districts are signing federal contracts that assure their farms ample water for the next 25 to 50 years.
Read MoreFeds reopen talks after criticism from environmentalists.
Fresno Bee, Staff
Published January 14, 2006
Federal officials are reopening negotiations on the renewal of some farm water contracts after hearing critical comments from environmentalists and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
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United Press International, Staff Published January 15, 2006
BIG SKY, Mont. -- Environmentalists, fishermen and city officials are challenging the farmers and ranchers who have long controlled water resources in the West.
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Traditional Favoritism to Agricultural Interests Is Challenged as Demand Increases
Washington Post, Juliet Eilperin
BIG SKY, Mont. -- A hundred years after the city of Los Angeles and San Fernando Valley farmers battled neighboring Owens Valley for control over water from the Owens River, there's a new kind of water war in the West. From Montana to Arizona to California and beyond, alliances of environmentalists, fishermen and city dwellers are challenging the West's traditional water barons -- farmers and ranchers -- who have long controlled the increasingly scarce resource.
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Des Moines Register, Philip Brasher
Published May 29, 2009
Government conservation money in Iowa should be targeted to farms in areas that pollute the Mississippi River basin and cause a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, an environmental group says.
Read MoreBy Michelle Perez, principal author and
Read MoreA frayed regulatory framework and dependence on voluntary action has done little to mitigate the damage from agricultural activities in the six states in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
Read MoreAfter more than a decade of fighting an across-the-board industry campaign, the California government has finally announced proposed health guidelines for the deadly cancer-causing chemical hexavalent chromium, or chromium-6 first made famous by environmental health crusader Erin Brockovich.
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EWG's Jane Houlihan, Senior Vice President for Research, and Nneka Leiba, Environmental Health Researcher, head to a U.S. House hearing on the regulation of bottled water.
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