Fumes from long-ago industrial activity are still seeping into the homes of some Baltimore-area residents. Those fumes include cancer-causing chemicals like trichloroethylene and perchloroethylene. The site was one of the first Superfund cleanups, but the cleanup was not thorough enough.

"The environmental damage caused by mountaintop removal mining across Appalachia has been well documented. But scientists are now beginning to understand that the mining operations’ most lasting damage may be caused by the massive amounts of debris dumped into valley streams."

The cap-and-trade climate bill which is the focus of West Virginia protests is packed with help for the coal industry.

"The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection is working to regulate salt discharges that result from natural-gas drilling."

"West Virginia regulators and coal operators have not properly implemented state rules meant to keep strip mining from contributing to flooding during heavy rains over narrow mountain hollows, according to a new federal report."

"More than 30 people -- including actress Daryl Hannah and NASA climate scientist James Hansen -- were arrested Tuesday in the latest protest in a growing civil disobedience campaign against mountaintop removal in Southern West Virginia."

The Army has finally agreed to an enforceable timetable for cleaning up Superfund sites at Fort Meade in Maryland.

West Virginia's "Environmental Protection Secretary Randy Huffman said Wednesday his agency is continuing to allow coal slurry to be injected underground at 13 locations in West Virginia, despite being unable to tell lawmakers if the process is safe."

"A Raleigh County [WV] judge has issued a preliminary injunction to block anti-mountaintop removal activists from further peaceful protests on certain Massey Energy mining sites."

The District of Columbia's city council is poised to tax disposable plastic and paper bags and to use the revenue to clean up the trash-strewn Anacostia River.

American shad are struggling with little success to make a comeback in Virginia's James River. Historically abundant, this "founding fish" disappeared for years because its spawning was blocked by dams.

"The thick, milky white liquid looks like Elmer's glue, though it's greasy to the touch. It has a sweet, alcohol smell. It's not your father's heating oil, to be sure. But it will do the same job, says Cary J. Claiborne, and a lot more cleanly.

Claiborne is president and chief executive officer of New Generation Biofuels, a Florida-based startup that's producing fuel from vegetable and soybean oil at a small production plant it set up this year in southern Baltimore.

Zebra mussels, which have caused an estimated $5 billion in damage to the Great Lakes, have been found in a Maryland tributary of Chesapeake Bay. If they spread, they could threaten the less-salty waters of the Bay.

West Virginia's environmental agency says it's OK for fish there to contain more mercury than the federal EPA recommends -- because West Virginians consume less fish than the national average.

"The Obama administration has cleared more than three-dozen new mountaintop removal permits for issuance by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, drawing quick criticism from environmental groups"