"Alpha Natural Resources announced Wednesday it’s permanently closing two mines and a coal preparation plant in Logan County [WV], and scaling back operations at two other southern West Virginia operations."

"NORFOLK -- At her cozy house by the river, Julie Faella spoke as though a monster lurks nearby. It rises under a tidal moon, she said, or when the winds howl, or when rains crash down."

"Federal health and environmental agencies are investigating whether Range Resources Inc.'s Yeager Marcellus Shale gas drilling site in Washington County caused toxic air and groundwater pollution that damaged the health of nearby residents."

"CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- In the weeks before last year's settlement of a major water pollution case, lawyers for Mingo County residents were saying they'd unearthed records indicating Massey Energy tried to cover up the extent of its underground pumping of coal-slurry waste."

"State lawmakers ran into a problem this year when recommending a study on rising sea levels and their potential impacts on coastal Virginia. It was not a scientific problem or a financial one. It was linguistic."

"YORK RIVER, Virginia -- Dying wetland trees along Virginia's coastline are evidence that rising sea levels threaten nature and humans, scientists say - and show the limits of political action amid climate change scepticism."

"CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Local citizens on Wednesday threatened to sue FirstEnergy Corp. over a huge coal-ash impoundment along the West Virginia-Pennsylvania border, alleging the operation is polluting area streams, tainting groundwater, and violating federal waste disposal requirements."

"Hundreds of Baltimore-area families have volunteered for a government study to spray their suburban yards with pesticide, which researchers hope can protect them from Lyme disease but that environmentalists warn is unsafe."

"In 2009 and 2010, the Delaware River near Wilmington got a little-noticed early taste of the waste left behind by the controversial natural gas drilling method called fracking. Some 1.4 million gallons of partially treated wastewater collected from hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, wells outside the Delaware River basin were further processed and flushed into Delaware waters through the commercial side of DuPont Co.’s big wastewater plant in Deepwater, N.J., near the foot of the Delaware Memorial Bridge."

Maryland is set to ban the arsenic-containing drug Roxarsone in chicken feed. Maryland is a major chicken producer, and that puts it ahead of most other states as well as the federal government. It is all the more remarkable, given that 'Big Chicken' is a major force in Maryland politics.

"At his family farm on Maryland's Eastern Shore, Lee Richardson raises thousands of chickens from fuzzy hatchlings to the juicy broilers stacked at grocery stores far and wide. Like a lot of farmwork, this seems simple, but it's not.

"A new law in Pennsylvania has doctors nervous."

"PITTSBURGH  -- In a lawsuit over gas industry secrecy, doctors, scientists, researchers and advocates filed court documents supporting two newspapers seeking access to information that could shed light on the health impacts of gas development, including the controversial process of hydraulic fracturing or fracking. ...

"The Sierra Club will try to use a 40-year-old legal settlement to scuttle plans by Dominion Resources Inc to convert a liquefied natural gas terminal in Maryland into a major export hub."

"The Chesapeake Bay Foundation and other environmental groups have urged a Pennsylvania federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the federal government's plan for reducing pollution fouling the estuary."

"PITTSBURGH -- A former top environmental official says Pennsylvania’s successful efforts to keep Marcellus Shale wastewater away from drinking water supplies should be extended to all other oil and gas drillers."