Articles by Grist staff

One Mississippi, Two Mississippi, Dead Mississippi

Six states whose waters feed the lower Mississippi River agreed this week to work together to reduce the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. Fertilizers, sewage, and other nutrient-rich pollution flowing from 42 states into the Mississippi produce the annual dead zone at the mouth of the river — a stretch of water with […]

The Reilly Factor

Massachusetts Attorney General Thomas Reilly (D) yesterday threw his weight behind opponents of a plan to build a wind farm off the state’s coast. In a friend-of-the-court brief filed in federal court, Reilly argued that the seabed of Nantucket Sound belongs to the federal government and therefore cannot be casually granted to a private company. […]

Whatlands?

In 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers standard to determine which of the nations’ bodies of water deserve protection, calling it overly broad. But the high court didn’t say what the standard should be, an issue the corps has been struggling to resolve ever since. Now, the dilemma […]

Owl’s Not Well

In a blow to environmentalists, the California spotted owl has been denied protection under the federal Endangered Species Act. According to the U.S. Fish and Wild Service, there is not enough evidence that the owl’s habitat is sufficiently threatened to merit listing — even though the agency acknowledged that a U.S. Forest Service plan to […]