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The Environmental Protection Agency has concluded that hydraulic fracturing, the oil and gas extraction technique also known as fracking, has contaminated drinking water in some circumstances, according to the final version of a comprehensive study first issued in 2015.

More than 200 million gallons of contaminated wastewater from a fertilizer plant in central Florida leaked into one of the state's main underground sources of drinking water after a massive sinkhole opened up beneath a storage pond, a phosphate company said Friday. The sinkhole, discovered by a worker on Aug. 27, is believed to reach down to the Floridan aquifer, the company said in a news release.

The latest in water contaminates in this trend is a group of chemicals known as Perfluorinated Alkyl Substances, or PFASs (also known as Perfluoro Compounds or PFCs). Originally developed to help repel stains and improve the effectiveness of firefighting chemicals, these substances have leached into groundwater near factories, military bases and other sites where they have been used heavily. Several Granular Activated Carbon (GAC) solutions are available for treatment of PFCs in groundwater. One of the most cost-effective of these options for PFAS removal comes from coconuts: AquaCarb CX enhanced coconut shell GAC. It combines the benefits of an activated carbon with the high micropore structure of coconut shell, with faster kinetics comparable to bituminous coal.

New research points to more bad news for the state of China's water supply, as its booming economy continues to heap pressure on natural resources, according to scientists.

A few basic (and often profitable) changes in a factory's manufacturing process can go a long way in cutting down pollution. That's the takeaway from Clean by Design, a new alliance between NRDC, major clothing brands-including Target, Levi's, Gap, and H&M-and Chinese textile manufacturing experts.

New "enhanced geothermal systems" (EGS), however, look set to make geothermal a bigger energy generation contributor-and potentially as controversial as shale. The industry may dislike the comparison, but EGS is geothermal fracking.