What We Learned This Week - "Assume deer dead"

Western states' representatives say they were not adequately consulted by the Obama Administration on the Waters of the U.S. proposed rule, and two House panels respectively passed one bill and attached a rider to another that would effectively block the rule.  The Army Corps' Civil Works program will receive more funding next year, if House appropriators have their way.  The U.S. EPA published its first ever national standards for coal combustion waste disposal, and a House committee approved a bill that would amend that rule.   Two Tennessee environmental groups filed a lawsuit against the Tennessee Valley Authority over coal-ash storage pond groundwater contamination.  A lawsuit was filed against the Fish and Wildlife Service alleging it has failed to protect four fish found in Mississippi River Basin waters. Nonprofit organizations rallied to bring attention to Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission-proposed mercury pollution mixing zone changes.  New studies indicate that pavement sealant getting into waterways kills fish and alters their DNA long after sealant application.  Researchers found that flooding is on the rise in the central U.S.  Residential and agricultural interests continued to clash over a proposed Indiana pig facility. The agriculture industry is expected to eventually capture as much as 80 percent of all U.S. commercial drone use.  Midwest farmers are eager to see an end to the U.S. embargo of Cuba.   Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley may have the quirkiest and most weirdly compelling Twitter feed in Congress.  Twitter messages can be used to create real-time flooding maps.  Water managers from forty U.S. states see water shortages in their states' futures.  Illinois Department of Natural Resources' efforts to reduce Illinois River Asian carp populations were said to be showing "promise." And last but not least, Asian carp attacked a Washington University rowing team in Missouri and reporters attacked a Scooby Van in Iowa.