Oil and water: A federal judge has ruled that releasing nearly 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico violates the Clean Water Act. Kind of a slam-dunk case, don't you think? The guilty party, Transocean, will be required to pay $400 million, which represents the second-highest criminal payment in U.S. history. The only one bigger? BP’s fine for the same Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. New Orleans Times-Picayune

We like Mike: He’s built bike lanes and pedestrian plazas, banned smoking and large sodas, gotten aggressive about climate adaptation, and now New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has launched himself another quality-of-life quest that environmentalists should happily get behind: wiping out plastic-foam takeout containers. “We can live without it, we may live longer without it, and the doggie bag will survive just fine,” the mayor proclaimed in his 12th and final State of the City address. We’re just gonna come right out and say it: we’re really gonna miss this guy when he’s gone. Bloomberg (natch)

Enviros to military: call me, maybe?: We’re a day after Valentine’s Day, so why not consider the notion that the U.S. military and environmentalists should be shacking up and making beautiful music … err, data … together. There are plenty of examples of where the research gathered by government and military types could benefit scientists and environmental advocates, and vice versa. And the Pentagon already recognizes that climate change represents a threat to national security, and knowing more about how our world is being altered would benefit military strategy. So what do you say, guys? Can we set you up? Slate

Sex and the city sewer: Speaking of Valentine’s Day, guess where our associate editor dragged her sweetie for a romantic getaway: to the local sewage treatment plant! OnEarth

Shine on, you crazy drill rigs: Up in North Dakota, there are now so many natural gas wells that, at night, you can see them from space. Some of them are lit up, but much of the illumination comes from the drillers burning off, or “flaring,” a portion of the gas that comes out of the ground (enough to heat half a million homes). A bill in the North Dakota legislature would have stopped the wasteful flaring (which produces the global warming equivalent of 2.5 million cars, according to World Bank estimates), but it was voted down earlier this week. That really burns. Fuel Fix

Don’t drug the fish: Hmm, it seems that fish that ingest anti-anxiety medication don’t react to it so well: they become less social and develop eating disorders. (To be clear, the anti-anxiety medication is made for humans and consumed by the fish accidentally, after it’s flushed, excreted, or discarded. No one’s all that worried about fish being anxious, although given the state of our acidifying oceans, polluted waterways, and global overfishing, who could blame them?) The research is just a further indication that “Drugging Our Waters” (as the title of a 2006 OnEarth story put it) is bad for fish and fowl alike (not to mention us humans). New York Times

Oh give me a home, where the phones are on roam: An editorial laments the pressure being placed on the National Park Service to allow greater wireless coverage in national parks, including Glacier and Yellowstone. “What a terrible idea,” the writers lament. “The great outdoors is supposed to be about twitter without the capital 'T.' How are you supposed to hear it if your cellphone is chirping?” Our own David Gessner recently expressed his own thoughts on nature and social networks in a column for our magazine. Worth reading, if you missed it. Chicago Tribune

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