The 60-mile-long fishing lines that can snag endangered leatherback sea turtles would be allowed off the California coast for the first time, under a decision being weighed by a federal agency.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A conservation organization has requested that Alaska and six other states add bodies of water to their list of impaired waterways: the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

The Center for Biological Diversity, based in San Francisco, requested that Alaska, Washington, Oregon and Hawaii list the Pacific Ocean as impaired under the federal Clean Water Act. The group wants New York, New Jersey and Florida to list the Atlantic.

Fishing wiped out Atlantic Bluefin tuna stocks in Northern Europe 50 years ago, according to a new study, while ongoing pressure on the remaining stocks is pushing the entire species to the edge of extinction.

Close to $3 million is being poured into studies outlining how water is lost through evaporation and plant use, Australian government announced late last week.

The research is part of a nation-wide scheme called the Raising National Water Standard Programme, which includes three projects focusing on the remote sensing of evapotranspiration at the local, catchment and regional level.

Evapotranspiration includes evaporation and plant water use, and is the second largest component of the hydrological cycle, representing up to 90% of rainfall levels in many areas.

LONDON, England (CNN) — James Bond would be lost without them — those madcap gadgets merging two technologies that help him beat the bad guys and save the planet. The underwater watch with a built-in Geiger counter, for example; or the car that doubles as a submarine; or the exploding bagpipes and missile-launching wheelchair.

Now a U.S. company has taken a leaf out of 007’s book and developed a similarly unlikely “combination” technology.

The “villain” in this case is not a psychotic, cat-stroking megalomaniac, but something both more prosaic and, potentially, more threatening — global warming: in particular, how to meet the world’s energy needs without swamping the planet with clouds of atmosphere-clogging pollutants.

Two rivers supplying water to one sixth of the people in China are heavily polluted and threaten the health of the population, according to state media.

The Huaihe River in eastern China and the northeastern Liaohe River are both severely contaminated with harmful chemicals and effluent, despite a decade spent trying to clean the waters, state-owned China Daily reported on Monday.

Although the chemical oxygen demand (COD), the standard used to judge water quality by Chinese environmental regulators, has been decreasing since 2004 in the Huaihe, it was still about 83% above the safe level last year.

Initial reviews indicate that countries will meet criteria to implement an essential tool in efforts to reduce global warming gases with a trading mechanism that allows States which cut emissions below treaty targets to sell their surplus allowances to others who overshoot the mark, the United Nations body overseeing the project reported today. International teams coordinated by the secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have finished reviews of reports from Austria, Japan and Switzerland on their preparations to work under the Kyoto Protocol, confirming that the Governments have put in place systems for calculating their emissions and tracking the results of their emissions trading. The trading system is set to begin in 2008.

“Kyoto requires that countries prove that they can track progress towards their emission targets and these reviews show that Governments are passing the test,” UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer said. “Austria, Japan and Switzerland are just the first reviews to be finished and we are expecting another 30 or so before the end of the year.”

BALTIMORE, Aug. 30, 2007 — General Motors Corp. announced this week that its transmission plant in White Marsh, Md., no longer sends any waste from its production operations to landfills.

The plant, scheduled to build the first two-mode hybrid transmissions for GM’s full-size SUVs and pickups, has operated with zero landfill waste since May.

About 97 percent of the waste materials, or 7,300 tons, will be recycled or reused, with the remaining 3 percent being converted to energy at a waste-to-energy facility. In 2006, the plant recycled, reused or converted 99 percent of its waste.

Streams, lakes, and bays may soon be cleaner thanks to an innovative approach to managing stormwater runoff being developed at Virginia Tech and funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

A novel software application will help engineers and planners select the most efficient and site specific methods — called “Best Management Practices” (BMPs) — of controlling the amount of pollutants that enter the receiving waters through stormwater runoff.

Pollutants are washed off the roads, parking lots, or other surfaces by stormwater, and include toxic motor oil, pesticides, metals, bacteria, and trash. The Congressional Research Service reported in 2007 that up to 50 percent of water pollution problems in the United State are attributed to stormwater runoff.

Faced with rising oil imports and mounting concerns over the environment, the U.S. and Canadian governments will undertake proactive initiatives to reduce their dependency on fossil fuels. In January 2007, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Clean Energy Act. When enforced, this legislation expects to transfer more than $14 billion from certain subsidies to investments in clean energy. Likewise, the Canadian government has launched three new ecoENERGY initiatives for boosting renewable energy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. These initiatives will likely provide new direction for the future growth of the North American renewable energy markets.

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan, North American Renewable Energy Market: Investment Analysis & Growth Opportunities, reveals that revenues in this market totaled $17.37 billion in 2006, and are likely to reach $24.6 billion in 2010.