Water & Oceans

"Hurricane Matthew has strengthened into a Category 2 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Wind Scale, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said on Friday."

"Pre-dawn purple and gold and orange swirl deep overhead as the waterfront stirs to life. It's 6 a.m. at Menekaunee Harbor, where the Menominee River empties into Lake Michigan: Workers file into buildings, heavy machinery fires up and 18-wheelers roar and belch and hit the road."

"The Chemical Safety Board brought voted Wednesday evening to approve the final report and recommendations that were the result of a more than two and a half year investigation into a Charleston chemical leak."

In a forthcoming paper, scientists say anaerobic decomposition of sediement and other organic material inundated by reservoirs emits a significant amount of greenhouse gases, mainly methane.

"Congress averted a government shutdown Wednesday as the Senate and then the House approved a short-term spending bill, allowing lawmakers to avoid a crisis and return home to campaign."

"Scientists found that lobster larvae struggled to survive when water temperatures rose 5 degrees F. warmer than current temperatures in the Gulf of Maine, a key lobster fishing area off of New England."

"The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill has been called one of the worst environmental disasters in American history — and more than six years later, scientists are still investigating how much damage it actually caused. Now, a new study suggests the spill may have permanently marred one of the Gulf shore’s most important ecosystems. "

"A sprawling network of flood barricades erected in Iowa's second-largest city of Cedar Rapids largely succeeded in holding back water from the rain-swollen Cedar River, city officials said on Tuesday."

"A must-do bill to prevent the government from shutting down this weekend and to fund the fight against the Zika virus is stalled in the Senate, held up by bipartisan opposition as the clock ticks toward a Friday deadline."