"A state Superior Court judge has ruled that the Occidental Chemical Corp. is liable for the $1 billion to $4 billion in costs associated with the cleanup of sediments in the lower Passaic River contaminated decades ago by Diamond Alkali/Diamond Shamrock Chemicals Corp., a now defunct Newark pesticide manufacturing plant."

"The rivers that run into New York Harbor will be unfit for recreational activities at least through Sunday because of a catastrophic fire that shut down one of the city’s largest sewage treatment plants, the city’s health department said Thursday."

"The latest draft of guidelines for hydraulic fracturing in New York could open the door to drilling within 1,000 feet of aging underground tunnels that carry water to New York City -- a far cry from the seven-mile buffer once sought by city officials."

"The Supreme Court decided [Monday] not to take up General Electric Co.'s legal campaign over how U.S. EPA exercises its authority to order companies to clean up hazardous waste sites."

"Tornadoes tore through Western and Central Massachusetts yesterday, killing at least four people, injuring an untold number, and reducing schools, churches, and homes to splinters along its destructive path."

"A top New York State official filed a lawsuit against the federal government on Tuesday to force an assessment of the environmental risks posed by drilling for natural gas in the Delaware River Basin, arguing that a regulatory commission should not issue final rules governing the drilling until a study is completed."

"Key committees writing rules for New Jersey's new program to clean up contaminated sites are made up entirely of the polluting companies and their contractors."

The ugly truth in Massachusetts is this: after some three decades and $1 billion worth of Superfund cleamup work at scores of toxic sites, nobody knows whether they are still poisoning people.

"The federal Environmental Protection Agency and the New York City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, are both calling for replacing school light fixtures that are leaking PCBs in five years or less, putting more pressure on the Bloomberg administration to speed up its planned time line of 10 years."

Neighborhood organizers won a settlement Tuesday that promises better cleanup of "green water" runoff from a former chrome production plant in Jersey City.

"In an unprecedented policy shift, inspectors in Pennsylvania have been ordered to stop issuing violations against drillers without prior approval from Gov. Corbett's new environmental chief."

"The Indian Point nuclear power plant is currently in violation of fire safety regulations and is seeking more than 100 exemptions from those regulations, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said Monday."

"Woodpeckers are already very busy, digging emerald ash borer larvae out of the city's ash trees and loving it."

"The operator of an Indiana County (PA) coal-fired power plant is liable for more than 8,600 violations of the Clean Water Act that polluted the Conemaugh River with metal discharges, a federal judge ruled, which would lead to a maximum civil penalty of more than $300 million."

"'Share the Road' has one potential fatal flaw: It involves sharing, which a lot of purported adults haven't really mastered. Matthew Shaer's exhaustive history of the NYC bike lane struggle, in this week's New York magazine, shows just how much people have to mature before a community -- even Brooklyn -- can become truly bike-friendly. Step one: Stop calling bike lanes 'homegrown terrorism.'"