HotSpots H2O: Scenes From an Overheating, Drying World 

A look at the global water-food-energy nexus after one of the hottest Julys on record

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Michigan Supreme Court Vacates Key Line 5 Permit

The Michigan Supreme Court on Friday ruled that the Michigan Public Service Commission erred when it granted a key permit for the Line 5 petroleum pipeline tunnel under the Straits of Mackinac. Among other findings in its 58-page ruling, the majority found the commission’s permit review was overly narrow, failed to consider whether the tunnel project would harm public rights to the Great Lakes, and failed to study whether Line 5 would shut down if the tunnel isn’t built.

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Despite Supreme Court Decision, Bayer Faces More Challenge Over Roundup

Top executives of Bayer, the German chemical maker, were understandably elated on June 25, the day the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in their favor in a product injury case involving the company’s Roundup herbicide. The high court reversed a state court decision and dismissed the legal theory that prompted a jury to award $1.25 million to a Missouri man who accused Roundup of causing his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

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As Canadian politicians promise a carbon emissions fix, the country burns. Here’s what you need to know

By Carl Meyer; This article was originally published by The Narwhal Wildfires are raging in every province and territory across Canada, leaving entire First Nations communities burnt, upending the lives of thousands of evacuees and creating plumes of toxic smoke dirtying the air in major cities like Toronto and New York. While some politicians claim the out-of-control wildfires are being primarily caused by improper forest management, scientists agree that climate change, driven by greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels, is the main culprit.

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Toxic Terrain: How Journalism Helped Break Iowa’s Farm Pollution Acquiescence

Real change occurs in America when civic pressures from outside the centers of influence force insiders to retreat. Arguably the most compelling example of systemic change in how a state could operate is now unfolding in Iowa. Severe water contamination from crop and livestock production linked to the nation’s second highest and fastest rising incidence of cancer developed into the election year issues of their time in Iowa,

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Inside America’s First Data Center-Only Utility

NORTHWEST INDIANA — The defining scenes of the era of artificial intelligence look nothing like science fiction. They are bright yellow, neon orange, dusty, sweaty, greasy, and loud. They are excavators parked in a tallgrass field in rural Indiana. They are backhoes trundling down an Ohio farming town’s lone road. They are the neon vests worn by sunburnt utility workers raising power lines in a Wisconsin county where cows outnumber humans tenfold.

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Ohio Scraps Controversial Plan to Ease Data Center Wastewater Discharges

COLUMBUS, Oh. — After months of deliberation, Ohio’s Environmental Protection Agency (OEPA) has decided not to move forward with a proposed general permit that would have allowed all data centers across the state — regardless of their size, location, or type — to discharge untreated waste- and stormwater directly into waterways.  The decision follows a recent slew of state-level orders — including those from New York, Michigan, Illinois, and Nebraska — meant to curb the data center industry’s growth, which so far has proceeded largely unchecked. 

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Legionnaires’ Disease Surfaced 50 Years Ago. It’s Still Killing People.

When members of the Pennsylvania American Legion gathered in Philadelphia on July 21, 1976, they were unaware that their organization’s annual conference would enter the epidemiological history books. America was in a celebratory mood that month. The country had just marked the bicentennial of the nation’s founding, and Philadelphia, as a leading player in the revolutionary drama, was a center of revelry.

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In Gambia, Salt Water Intrusion Is the Leading Edge of Climate Change

By Phred Dvorak July 12, 2026 This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here. BANTANG KILLING, Gambia—In this little village in West Africa, Ebrima Nyan is watching his farmland slowly wither away. When Nyan, 47, was a teenager, the village grew all the rice it consumed, in a field alongside the Gambia River.

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The AI Boom Is Prolonging Indiana’s Fossil Fuel Era, With Hidden Costs for Water

Learn how AI is influencing fossil fuels and water resources in Indiana, shedding light on local environmental issues.

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The AI Boom Is Prolonging Indiana’s Fossil Fuel Era, With Hidden Costs for Water

JASPER COUNTY, IND. — Growing up in the shadow of a coal plant in rural Indiana gives a child a unique relationship with the passage of time. As a little girl in the small town of Wheatfield, population 900, Barb Deardorff recognized the months by the height of the cornstalks and beansprouts which grew on her family’s farmland. The years were marked by what loomed beyond these fields — the R.M.

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North Bay’s PFAS problem: 5 things to know about a ‘forever chemicals’ hotspot in Ontario

By Leah Borts-Kuperman; June 26, 2026 This article was originally published by The Narwhal Gathered in an arena in North Bay, Ont., in summer 2024, federal officials told hundreds of concerned citizens how they planned to remediate longstanding contamination of the city’s waterways left behind by the Department of National Defence. A few months later, officials gave a similar presentation to a packed hotel conference room.

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Forget Western Water War: Local Managers Choose Partnership

Explore the Colorado River water sharing agreements and their impact on agriculture, industry, and climate challenges.

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Forget Western Water War: Local Managers Choose Partnership

The Colorado River, from one viewpoint, is a mess. The iconic waterway, fundamental to the region’s modern existence – its desert metropolises, its high-tech industries, its agriculture, and its recreation economy – is on the verge of crashing. A two-decade drying trend, aided by carbon pollution in the atmosphere and water use that exceeds supply have nearly drained the basin’s liquid savings accounts.

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Native American tribes came together to secure their rights to Colorado River water. 4 states are stalling the deal

By Alex Hager/KJZZ and Mark Olalde/ProPublica; Photography by Sharon Chischilly for ProPublica; June 29, 2026 This story was originally published by ProPublica and KJZZ Reporting highlights ▪ Certainty on the River: Tribes have negotiated a settlement to resolve the largest outstanding claim to the Colorado River, while providing billions of dollars for water infrastructure. ▪ Upper Hand: Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — the Upper Basin states — are resisting the deal because it allows the Navajo and Hopi to lease water outside their reservations.

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Betting on Lake Mead’s Demise

Gamblers now have a chance to put their money where the water isn’t. Kalshi, an online prediction market, is offering wagers on Lake Mead’s water level at the end of June. Prediction markets like Kalshi and its competitor Polymarket allow users to bet on the outcome of events – things like elections, interest rate decisions, the winning couple on Love Island, and even whether the U.S.

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Want to Predict Wildfires? The Key May Be Underground

By Annie MacKeigan, The Water Desk Western wildfires start and spread because of a whole host of factors—wind, temperature, drought, forest health. But scientists are finding that the most important indicator of where the next big fire might ignite isn’t held in the trees themselves, but in the soil their roots are buried in. Recent studies demonstrate how soil moisture data can help wildfire experts predict a potential fire’s location and severity.

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Trump Moves to Open America’s Wildest Forests to the Bulldozer

Dawn is most memorable, the awakening hour in Bear Swamp, a 3,915-acre expanse of the Huron-Manistee National Forest in northern Michigan. Even after the somnolence of night, morning light is not nudged by the sound of anything connected to industrial America. Such tracts of backcountry forest, unreachable on any road, are features of America’s grand necessity to honor and safeguard its wilderness expanses.

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U.S. Homes Show Three-Decade Decline in Indoor Water Use

Decades ago, before it was much of a concern, water moved through the average U.S. home in enormous quantities. Toilets pulled 3.5 gallons per flush or more. Washing machines filled like tiny swimming pools. Water flowed and flowed. Things have tightened considerably since then. New data shows that U.S. homes are becoming ever more efficient in their water use. Between 1999, when the first residential end-use study was released, to the…

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Setting Fires On Purpose to Cut Risk of Catastrophic Wildfires

Explore how prescribed burns for wildfire prevention can protect ecosystems and reduce risks in the Upper Midwest’s pristine lakes.

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Setting Fires On Purpose to Cut Risk of Catastrophic Wildfires

Wildfire risk is predicted to stay elevated through June in the Upper Midwest from drought and high winds. That’s risky for the region’s pristine inland lakes, but land managers are working to reduce wildfire risk in the Northwoods with controlled burns. Some experts are advocating for increasing the use of this centuries-old method of prescribed fire to create more resilient ecosystems.

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On Menominee Lakes, Wild Rice Is Coming Back. It Isn’t Easy.

Explore the connection between Wild Rice and Menominee Lakes in northern Wisconsin through ancient wisdom and modern technology.

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When Forests Burn, Lakes Suffer

Wildfire risk is high in the upper Great Lakes, and research shows that large, scorching wildfires spell trouble for lakes in the region’s remote watersheds.  The reason: Vegetation burns in the fire. Scorching, high temperatures make the soil hydrophobic, which causes erosion and more runoff into lakes. Plants are no longer there to filter the sediment seeping into waterways. One region of concern is northern Minnesota where fires are blazing in dry and windy conditions.

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Ethanol Was Marketed to Help Agriculture. But It Fouled Our Water and Injured Our Health.

Just like his presidential predecessors – George Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden – Donald Trump has a thing for ethanol. But why? Inordinately expensive to taxpayers, monstrously polluting, and now linked to mounting cancer incidence in Midwest Corn Belt states, fermenting ethanol from a third of America’s corn crop would appear to sane people as an insane pursuit. Not to corn growers, ethanol refiners and their allies in farm industries, the White House, Congress, and farm state legislatures.

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Broke and On Their Own: Small Water Systems Lose Ground as Federal Support Wavers

The country’s most severe drinking water problems, from high levels of contaminants and foul-smelling water to pipe breaks, low water pressure, and expensive rates, are generally found in the…

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Illinois Fails to Pass Landmark Act Requiring ‘Responsible’ Data Center Energy and Water Use

Find out why the Illinois POWER Act fails to pass, leaving crucial data center water usage and energy use regulations unaddressed.

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On Menominee Lakes, Wild Rice Is Coming Back. It Isn’t Easy.

MENOMINEE, Wisc. — On a cool bluebird morning, DJ Micik guides his canoe through the narrow channel connecting Little Rice Lake with Rice Lake, two of the largest bodies of water on the Menominee reservation in northern Wisconsin. Sitting behind Micik is his 6-year-old son, Liam, whose curiosity pulls him again and again into the tall trio of buckets he sits amongst.

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