"The Supreme Court declined today to review a lower court's ruling prohibiting U.S. EPA from suspending normal emissions standards for major pollution sources during "startup, shutdown and malfunction" (SSM) periods."

"The top U.S. environmental regulator said she was 'very concerned' about fluids blamed by some for polluting water supplies near sites where drillers use them to extract natural gas from shale deposits."

"More than a year after a Tennessee coal ash spill created one of the worst environmental disasters of its kind in United States history, the problem is seeping into several other states."

"Environmental activists filed suit Tuesday against the poultry giant Perdue Farms and an Eastern Shore farm where Perdue chickens are raised, contending that the farm is polluting the Chesapeake Bay with manure-laden runoff."

EPA added Brooklyn's long-polluted Gowanus Canal to the Superfund National Priority List -- along with nine other sites. The designation means that EPA will oversee the cleanup. New York City Mayor Bloomberg had been pushing for a city-run cleanup.

"The U.S. arm of chemical giant LyondellBasell is in negotiations to settle its environmental cleanup liabilities — which include the Kalamazoo River Superfund site — with the U.S. government, according to a company spokesman."

"Animal manure, a byproduct as old as agriculture, has become an unlikely modern pollution problem, scientists and environmentalists say."

"The Environmental Protection Agency is considering a petition from farm worker and public health advocates to ban pesticide spraying near schools, hospitals and child care centers."

A deliberately caused oil spill of some 660,000 gallons in Northern Italy snaked down the Po River and reached the province of Parma raising fears of contamination in a farm district that produces Italy's famed prosciutto and parmesan cheese.

"At least 31 more coal-ash impoundments across the country -- including two in West Virginia -- have been found to have polluted nearby groundwater, wetlands and streams, according to a report issued Wednesday by two national environmental groups. The report brings to more than 100 the total number of sites where coal-ash disposal has been linked to contamination of water supplies with toxic pollutants including arsenic, cadmium and selenium."

"General Electric Co. and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency offered different lessons Wednesday on the first year of PCB Hudson River dredging -- starting with how much PCBs were removed."

"The U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee said on Thursday it was investigating the potential impact of hydraulic fracturing on the environment and human health."

"State and federal officials were, at one point, looking at almost a complete loss of support from Asarco for projects to clean up contaminated sites. Then, a dramatic recovery of copper prices lead to benefits for Tacoma, Everett, and elsewhere in the state."

"A range of health problems are linked to the pits on military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. Toxic substances have been found in the smoke."

"Across the country, stormwater runoff hammers thousands of rivers, streams and lakes. Communities are left to struggle with the consequences of too much pavement and too little oversight. Now the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is gearing up to tighten federal stormwater rules that have been criticized by environmental groups and deemed ineffective by a national panel of researchers."