Waterways

The James River Association (JRA) released their biennial State of the James report grading one of the Chesapeake Bay’s three largest rivers at a B. The 66% score is much improved from its failing health decades ago—Scientists estimate the James’s health in the 1970s would have been a D-minus.

NEW ORLEANS — The heating element removed from Monique Plaisance’s water heater in September was disintegrating, streaked with rust and covered in a dry crust. She blamed the corrosion on the water piped in from the area’s longtime drinking water source: the Mississippi River.

The high pace of urbanisation, coupled with increased production and tourism activities, has been particularly straining on the environment in many rural and coastal areas.

Although the Mississippi River remains extremely low, flows below Baton Rouge, along with mitigation efforts by the New Orleans Engineer District, continue to hold at bay salt water intruding up the river from the Gulf of Mexico.

Amid extreme drought across South America exacerbated by climate-change related heat extremes and El Niño, major tributaries of the Amazon River are reporting record-low water levels.

New Orleans’ water treatment plant in Algiers is no longer expected to be affected by the saltwater wedge moving up the Mississippi River.

WEITCHPEC, Calif. — At first, the dead floated downstream a few at a time. Then they came by the hundreds, and then the thousands.

In the first of hopefully more easings of the state and tribal fishing moratorium on the Elwha that began in 2011, the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe is holding a ceremonial and subsistence fishery on the now damless north Olympic Peninsula river, using rods and lures to catch coho.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is stepping up enforcement of vessel speed limits when endangered North Atlantic right whales are on the move. The agency has used satellite technology and even highway patrol-style speed radar to nab violators.

Raging floods, intensifying drought and rising seas could affect saltwater intrusion

Poor river management means that London is number nine in the list of global cities most likely to run out of drinking water, campaigner Feargal Sharkey said at New Scientist Live

20 years after Truro opens a valve, sea creatures continue a comeback

With the plonk of fishing tackle in clear, green water, the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe's first fishery on a free-flowing river in more than a century got underway.

The river has reached near-historic lows amid extreme drought in much of the basin for the second year in a row, which is slowing down shipping and driving up costs for everyone from barge companies to grain elevators. The whole industry is grappling with how to adapt to an increasingly chronic problem.

PLAQUEMINES PARISH, La. (WGNO) — Officials with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced that 500,000 gallons of fresh water from the Mississippi River have been transported to a water treatment plant in lower Plaquemines Parish.

It’s been one year since Hurricane Ian hit Lee County at a strong Category 4 intensity causing more than 150 direct and indirect deaths and creating more than $112 billion in damage, making it the costliest hurricane in Florida’s history.

The ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach and Shanghai have announced the creation of the first-ever green shipping corridor designed to accelerate emissions reductions at three of the world’s largest container ports and from vessels in transit from China to Southern California.

GALVESTON, Texas -- The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Galveston District (SWG) awarded the fourth and final multimillion dollar contract for the Corpus Christi Ship Channel Improvement Project (CCSCIP) September 25, 2023.

Concern is increasing in New Orleans with every mile a wedge of salty water gains in its slow creep up the Mississippi River toward the city, but there's still much locals and officials don't yet know.

WASHINGTON – Today, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration (MARAD) awarded nearly $12 million in grants to eight marine highway projects across the nation under the United States Marine Highway Program (USMHP).

A coalition of Mississippi River mayors wants a 10-state compact that would establish collective management of the waterway.

Red tide in the water and in the air contribute to manatee deaths on Florida’s west coast, setting the region’s waterways apart from other troubled areas of manatee mortality in Florida, researchers say.

The Panama Canal Authority (ACP) says that daily transit limits and draught restrictions will remain in place until next year and warns it could make additional transit reductions if the drought persists.

Maersk placed its first methanol-fueled container ship official into service with a naming ceremony in Copenhagen today of the Laura Maersk.