"On some days, Russell Keith could simply look up at the sky to gauge how busy his day would be as a paramedic at the largest U.S. base in Iraq. Dark green smoke meant the contractor could count on a 30 to 40 percent spike in his patient load, he told the Senate Democratic Policy Committee last week during a hearing on contractor oversight."

"Nearly half of lakes and reservoirs nationwide contain fish with potentially harmful levels of the toxic metal mercury, according to a federal study released Tuesday."

"Wastewater from natural gas drilling in New York state is radioactive, as high as 267 times the limit safe for discharge into the environment and thousands of times the limit safe for people to drink."

"WEST UNION, W.Va. -- A spill upstream of the town of West Union during the summer has revealed a gap in the system for notifying drinking water systems of possible contamination."

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Inspector General has decided to review the appropriateness of the EPA's program to promote 'beneficial uses' of coal combustion waste with the industries it regulates."

"Environmentalists are beefing up efforts to increase regulation of a controversial oil and gas drilling technique as interest grows in tapping vast natural gas fields across the country."

"The Environmental Protection Agency is working to clear contaminated soils from a former recycling business site in Wayland [MI]."

"In Atlanta, Ga., you'll find southern gentility, a world-class music scene--and 21,000 pounds of environmental waste. In spite of its charms, the city's combination of air pollution, contaminated land and atmospheric chemicals makes it the most toxic city in the country."

"More than 60 years after scientists assembled the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, lethal waste is seeping from mountain burial sites and moving toward aquifers, springs and streams that provide water to 250,000 residents of northern New Mexico."

"The Interior Department will leave in place George W. Bush-era changes to a rule designed to protect streams from mountaintop-removal coal mining until 2011, according to court documents filed by the Obama administration Friday."

"Congress authorized buying out the residents of the contaminated community of Treece [Kansas] on Thursday, and the Environmental Protection Agency signaled it's ready to move forward with emptying the town of people."

"Congressional negotiators reached a deal Tuesday that would effectively exempt 13 ships that haul iron ore, coal and other freight on the Great Lakes from a proposed federal rule meant to reduce air pollution."

"A new EPA report says that the potentially toxic pollutants in coal ash – from mercury to arsenic - are of particular concern because they can concentrate in large amounts that are discharged to waterways or seep into groundwater."

"Idling school buses spew tons of exhaust into the air, putting children at risk when they leave school at the end of each day. In New York City alone, idling vehicles emit as much pollution as nine million diesel trucks driving from the Bronx to Staten Island. But the city's laws requiring them to shut down their engines in school zones are poorly enforced."

"More than 100 properties near the Doe Run Co.'s smelter have been recontaminated with dangerous levels of lead, a finding that comes less than a decade after regulators ordered the company to remove and replace polluted soil on the properties, the U.S. EPA said Monday."