"A tightening congressional race in upstate New York could become the first public referendum on shale-gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing."
 

"A federal jury in Utica has found Certified Environmental Services, Inc., two of its managers and one of its employees guilty of falsifying lab reports to make it appear as if asbestos had been removed from homes, schools, and other buildings when, in fact, asbestos remained in the buildings."

"Hundreds of people opposed to drilling for natural gas in South Fayette's residential areas packed an auditorium Monday night to tell the township's five commissioners not to permit gas wells near the sprawling school campus."

"A coalition of elected officials and unions called on Thursday for faster action from the city and federal government to monitor and, if necessary, remove hazardous chemicals known as PCBs from as many as 700 city schools, calling the problem a 'serious health threat.'"

"In a move that seems to fly in the face of its moniker -- the Garden State -- New Jersey is getting ready to put the pinch on fertilizer."

"The tension between drillers in Pennsylvania's gas-rich Marcellus shale and communities trying protect natural resources has reached a fevered pitch in Clinton County, where a zoning hearing board resigned rather than allow a water withdrawal station at a scenic bend of the West Branch of the Susquehanna River that draws kayakers, hang gliders, hunters and fly fishermen."

A study involving hundreds of families in Maine is finding high levels of arsenic in drinking water. The highest risk is for those drinking from private wills, which are not subject to regulation. In Maine, 56 percent of residents live in homes with private wells.

"Lawns may turn more brittle and yellow, but lakes, bays and marshes could become a lot cleaner under a bill making its way through Trenton that would ban many lawn care products on the shelf today."

"Just beneath the wind-stippled surface of the Hudson River here, huge pipes suck enough water into the Indian Point  nuclear plant every second to fill three Olympic swimming pools. And each second they take in dozens of organisms -- fish and crabs, but mostly larvae -- that are at the center of a $1.1 billion debate: should the plant have to put in cooling towers that would vastly reduce the intake of water?"

"BINGHAMTON  -- A pair of [New York] state legislators on Wednesday showed an improved version of a website mapping cancer instances statewide as well as buildings and other facilities holding chemicals, gases or producing air emissions."

"EDGARTOWN, Mass. — Standing alongside the 13th green at the Vineyard Golf Club on Martha’s Vineyard, Jeff Carlson spotted a small broadleaf weed between his feet. As the superintendent charged with maintaining the club grounds, he instinctively bent to pluck it, then stopped."

"Romeo Michaud looked at the Androscoggin River on Friday, remembering how he fished for hornpout as a boy. Over time, he and others stopped eating the fish they caught as the river became among the most polluted in the country."

"A disease that rots the shells of lobsters is threatening the Northeast’s $20-million lobster industry, scientists said Wednesday."

"The New York State Senate has approved at least a nine-month delay in issuing permits for a method of natural gas drilling, saying more study is needed to ensure it does not contaminate the state's water supply."

"New Jersey has seriously neglected patrolling its shellfish grounds for years, with inadequate enforcement on more than two-thirds of its waters, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration."