Feuds and politics seem to have kept former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's state EPA from referring criminal pollution cases to Attorney General Lisa Madigan for at least 2 years.

"A class action lawsuit representing water districts throughout Illinois cites recent research contending atrazine in drinking water is unsafe at any level, even measurements well below U.S. Environmental Protection Agency guidelines."

"EPA is rolling out a new package of restoration programs that could begin shifting the Great Lakes back toward ecological health. The program, known as the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, is backed by a $475 million pledge from the White House and House of Representatives, which approved full funding for the program in June."

"In rural west Michigan, food processors have sprayed so much wastewater onto fields that heavy metals seeped into groundwater, contaminating wells."

"Hazardous 3M trash buried decades ago in Washington County is being dug up and will be reburied with a protective lining."

"For decades, one of the nation's most widely used dry cleaning solvents was billed as a marvel of modern chemistry that could safely remove dirt and stains from clothing. ...But over the years, with little if any notice to the public, the often sloppy use of perchloroethylene has poisoned hundreds of sites in Illinois."

"Robert Wainwright, 65, a fugitive wanted in Indiana for allegedly polluting wetlands, was arrested July 14 in Mexico by U.S. marshals and agents of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, working with Mexican police."

It took awhile, but the U.S. Midwest finally has recognized that the industries that once powered its economy will never return. Now leaders in the region are looking to renewable energy manufacturing and technologies as key to the heartland’s renaissance.

"On July 4, 1999, a storm devastated the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in northern Minnesota and killed millions of trees. Now, the forest is growing back." Everybody who was there 10 years ago has a story.

"Advocates and U.S. government agree to list the gray wolf as "threatened" in Minnesota and to put ones in Wisconsin and Michigan on the endangered list."

When the St. Lawrence Seaway was opened 50 years ago, it promised to move the ocean 1,000 miles inland, boost commerce, and light cities. But some think it has been an environmental nightmare.

"AmerenIP hopes to begin a massive environmental clean-up at the former site of McCabe Scrap Iron & Materials Co. [in Galesburg, Ill.,] by September or October. Galesburg Gas Light & Coke Co. produced gas beginning in 1861 at the 3-acre site, with coal tar as a waste product."

The Cuyahoga River, which became a symbol of pollution when it caught fire 40 years ago, has come back to life.

"Nearly a month after the onset of a navigational dredging project in the Saginaw River that some worry will send dioxin-contaminated sediments downstream toward the intakes for Bay City’s water supply, EPA officials responded to citizen concerns by announcing it would not test the water for the toxin."

"At least 10,000 more properties in residential neighborhoods of Evansville will be tested for lead and arsenic contamination in the soil of their yards" from foundries going back to the 1880s.