"For more than six years, a power plant that towers over Chicago's Southeast Side repeatedly has belched out smoke so thick it violates air pollution laws and aggravates respiratory illnesses for residents nearby."

"Illinois is failing to crack down on water pollution from large confined-animal farms, the Obama  administration announced Wednesday in a stinging rebuke that gave the state a month to figure out how to fix its troubled permitting and enforcement programs."

"Michigan could be seeing the beginning of a new boom in drilling for natural gas. Leases for drilling rights are going for unheard of prices in northern-lower Michigan."

"Great Lakes pollution is getting worse because sewage systems are outdated and Ontario’s north is turning into a Wild West for miners and forestry companies, warns Environmental Commissioner Gord Miller."

A blighted area of Indianapolis has at least 70 of the area's 500 abandoned commercial and industrial sites. The return of rail transport promises revitalization.

After wolves killed dogs in Wisconsin, the state DNR is calling for transfer of jurisdiction over the federally protected endangered species to the state.

"Paradise is in peril, both in the Great Lakes region and along the Gulf Coast."

Residents of the area affected by last week's oil spill in the Kalamazoo River filed a federal class-action lawsuit against pipeline operator Enbridge Inc. on Friday.

"Western Lake Erie could be on the verge of one of its worst algae outbreaks in years."

One of the biggest oil spills in Midwest history seems to have been contained within a 25-mile reach of Michigan's Kalamazoo River. The oil has not reached Morrow Lake and its dam, which makes it unlikely to enter the 80-mile-long Kalamazoo River Superfund site between there and Lake Michigan.

"Federal officials now estimate that more than 1 million gallons of oil may have spilled into the Kalamazoo River through Battle Creek, and the governor is sharply criticizing clean-up efforts as 'wholly inadequate.'"

"Crews were working Tuesday to contain and clean up more than 800,000 gallons of oil that poured into a creek and flowed into the Kalamazoo River in southern Michigan, coating birds and fish."

"Michigan could save billions annually by protecting children from exposure to environmental hazards, according to a study released today."

"Detroit's  anti-lead program -- beset with alleged shakedowns and bogus treatments, missing files, incompetence and mismanagement -- was upended last year after such scorching claims were reported in state and federal investigations." But efforts to reform it have left many lead-poisoned kids untreated and permanently damaged.

When Ray Hott bought a strip of land in DeKalb, Illinois, he did not know that it had been contaminated by toxic chemicals from a gas plant a century before.