Toxic coal-tar liquids from ancient gas-manufacturing plants have been creeping through the soil of the mid-Hudson Valley for more than a century. Cleanup projects may cost some $3 billion.

"Weighing the future of a controversial wind farm project, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar toured Nantucket Sound on a Coast Guard cutter Tuesday, surveying the 24-square-mile area where the proposed project would loom."

"The old DuPont munitions plant that left behind a trail of lead and mercury, contaminated soil and water and a plume of toxic vapor still capable of leaking into at least 450 houses. The story has no end in sight."

"Levels of radioactive tritium have risen rapidly in recent weeks in the groundwater surrounding Vermont’s sole nuclear power plant, leading both longtime supporters and foes of the reactor to question whether it will be allowed to keep operating."

"[New Jersey] State and federal environmental officials said Monday night that they will take a more active role in the DuPont cleanup in Pompton Lakes, while urging residents to install mitigation systems in their homes as soon as possible."

"AUGUSTA, Maine — State environmental officials began making their case Monday for a $200 million cleanup of the HoltraChem site in Orrington, arguing that contaminants in five outdated landfills threaten groundwater supplies and the Penobscot River."

"Hudson River dredging released almost 25 times more PCBs into the water than expected, General Electric said Thursday in calling for changes in performance standards before the massive Superfund cleanup resumes."

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and New York City announced a pilot program Tuesday to address the problem of potentially hazardous PCBs in construction materials in some city schools."

"In a new setback for a controversial wind farm proposed off Cape Cod, the National Park Service announced Monday that Nantucket Sound was eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, guaranteeing further delays for the project."

City leaders celebrated the ground-breaking for New Bedford High School in 1970, apparently not knowing the risks of building it on a toxic dump.

After decades of putting hazardous and toxic waste into the Parker Street Dump, the city of New Bedford Massachusetts built a high school and middle school on the site. Today, the city is dealing with the toxic legacy.

"The owner of the highly polluted Kin-Buc Landfill in Edison has agreed to make the largest environmental clean-up contribution in the United States, $1.79 billion, as part of a bankruptcy settlement."

"An Ithaca environmental activist and 6,000 other individuals and organizations asked the governor Tuesday to withdraw the state's newly drafted regulations on natural gas drilling, saying the state's entire regulatory framework needs to be strengthened before more drilling occurs."

"Trees along big city streets have a rough life. Between pollution, development, and vandalism, street trees die off at a pretty alarming rate. One New York artist thinks if people knew more about street trees, they’d appreciate them more -- and treat them better."

"As the debate over the merits of Marcellus Shale development reaches a crescendo, an Ithaca researcher has culled a list of 270 files documenting wastewater spills, well contamination, explosions, methane migration and ecological damage related to gas production in the state since 1979."