The ongoing drought in Texas has reduced recreational opportunities, harmed wildlife, and threatened drinking water supplies. As Texas’ population and economy continue to grow, demand for water will increase, making it more important than ever to use water wisely. Keeping Water in Our Rivers documents opportunities to save water through improved efficiency and calculates the possible water savings from investing in conservation. Proven technologies and approaches can improve the efficiency of water use in agriculture, landscaping, municipal water infrastructure, electricity generation, and oil and gas drilling.

The negative environmental and health impacts of fracking for oil and gas come with  heavy “dollars and cents” costs,  ranging from cleaning up contaminated water to repairing ruined roads. The experience of previous fossil fuel booms suggests that many of these costs will wind up being borne by the public. The Costs of Fracking highlights the many ways in which oil and gas production using hydraulic fracturing affects the environment, public health and our communities, and calls for steps to ensure that the oil and gas industry is held financially accountable for the damage it causes.

Intensive chicken production on Maryland’s Eastern Shore generates large volumes of phosphorus-laden manure. Growers and farmers spread this manure on their fields as fertilizer, but when applied in excess, the nutrients that make manure useful for fertilizing crops also contribute to dead zones in the Chesapeake Bay. An Unsustainable Path explains how Maryland’s current approach to protecting the bay from phosphorus pollution is inadequate and how the state must end the practice of spreading chicken manure on farmland that is likely to pollute the bay.

Our oceans are polluted with millions of tons of plastic trash. Throw-away plastic bags are a significant part of the problem. In this report, we document how more than 80 national and local governments across the planet have taken action to ban throw-away plastic bags or to establish fees or taxes on such bags - protecting our environment and reducing litter.

The agribusiness lobby is well known as one of the most powerful in Washington, D.C., and many states. Less well known is the fact that big agribusiness interests are among the largest roadblocks to cleaner water for the American people. Big agribusiness corporations have invested millions of dollars in campaign contributions and lobbying to defend agricultural practices that pollute America’s rivers, lakes and ocean waters and to defeat common-sense measures to clean up our waterways. The time has come for public officials to resist the entrenched power of big agribusiness and implement strong measures to protect our waterways.

Pollution from agribusiness is responsible for some of America’s most intractable water quality problems – including the “dead zones” in the Chesapeake Bay, Gulf of Mexico and Lake Erie. Corporate Agribusiness and America's Waterways reveals the role of some of the world's largest agribusiness firms in the pollution of our waterways and calls for solutions to address the problem and ensure that corporate agribusiness firms take responsibility for their pollution.

Nearly four decades after enactment of the Clean Water Act, industrial facilities continue to dump hundreds of millions of pounds of toxic chemicals into America’s rivers, streams, lakes and ocean waters. Wasting Our Waterways quantifies the amount of toxic pollution dumped into specific waterways across the United States; underscores the threat this pollution poses to the environment, wildlife, and human health; and calls for stronger enforcement of the Clean Water Act, including restoration of Clean Water Act authority over all American waterways.