"Four environmental groups have just filed a major new water pollution lawsuit against Massey Energy."

"The Environmental Protection Agency has ordered air pollution limits tightened on a Baltimore trash-to-energy incinerator after finding the state improperly relaxed them and did not require adequate monitoring of the plant's toxic emissions."

"Baltimore's revitalized waterfront draws millions of visitors a year, but could it ever be a place where people actually take a dip? Or catch fish? That's the vision of a local group that wants to make Baltimore's harbor swimmable and fishable within a decade."

"The Chesapeake's blue crabs, in decline for a decade, are in the middle of an extraordinary comeback, officials in Maryland and Virginia said Wednesday. The estuary's crab population has more than doubled in two years, they said, reaching its highest level since 1997."
 

"Maryland is failing to ride herd on water pollution in the state because of serious funding shortfalls and its own flawed enforcement practices, according to a Washington-based think tank."

"An O'Malley administration proposal to ease Maryland's stringent new storm-water pollution rules won legislative approval [Monday] night, capping a fierce debate over whether the Chesapeake Bay would suffer from giving developers more time and leeway in having to clamp down on rainfall washing off their building projects."

"MONTCOAL, W.Va. -- Twenty-five miners were killed Monday after a huge explosion at a Massey Energy mine in Raleigh County, the worst mine disaster in the United States in more than a quarter-century."

"Alleging that a Brandywine landfill is discharging toxic pollutants into local waterways, the Maryland Department of the Environment filed suit against the site's operator Friday in federal court. ... The landfill stores the waste byproducts of coal combustion from Mirant's Chalk Point Generating Plant in Aquasco."

"In Maryland, messing with Big Chicken can bring big trouble. The latest case study is playing out in Annapolis, where the state Senate wants to impose greater scrutiny on the University of Maryland's environmental law clinic. The reason? Apparently, it's the law clinic's pro bono work for an environmental group that is suing an Eastern Shore chicken farmer and the poultry giant Perdue Farms."

With the Chesapeake's once-abundant oysters reduced 99 percent, Maryland Natural Resources Police go undercover to catch poachers.
 

"New tests show that toxic pollution from an abandoned chemical plant near Delaware City is far worse than previously believed, posing even greater future risks to drinking water in the region."

"Water quality downstream from surface coal-mining operations in West Virginia and Kentucky greatly exceeds recommended toxicity limits, according to previously unreleased sampling data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency."

"Facing foreclosure, Gail Litz, 61, has sued the town of Goldsboro, Caroline County and the state, seeking millions of dollars in compensation and to halt the seeping sewage that is fouling her lake and forced her to close Lake Bonnie Campsites." The Maryland Department of the Environment ordered the town to build a public sewer system or pay fines of $100 per day if it didn't meet the deadlines. "Fourteen years later, the pollution continues unchecked. No fines have been collected. The lake remains contaminated."

"A former foreman at one of West Virginia's largest underground coal mines admitted Wednesday that he lied about conducting a key safety test, as a federal criminal probe continued into allegations that Patriot Coal officials covered up evidence of explosive methane levels at their Federal No. 2 Mine in Monongalia County."

"Gov. Bob McDonnell signed into law Wednesday offshore drilling legislation intended to realize his goal of making Virginia the East Coast's energy superpower."