"The Obama administration on Thursday will pump $100 million into a little-known program that is going a long way toward redefining Everglades restoration.

The money won’t go to build reservoirs. It will go to ranchers.

"A federal appeals court [Tuesday] struck down a challenge filed by the Florida Department of Agriculture and several chemical companies and upheld a clean water settlement between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and conservation groups."

"Mossville Louisiana sits in the shadow of 14 petrochemical refineries. When residents felt the US Government wasn’t protecting their right to a healthy environment, they reached past the American regulators, legislators and courts to take their case to the highest human rights court in the western hemisphere."

"Arkansas regulators are expected Tuesday to order the closure of some underground storage facilities that natural-gas drillers use to dispose of contaminated water because of concerns they are causing earthquakes."

"Two months before completion of a health risk study on Velsicol pollution in South Chattanooga, state regulators say the company doesn't need to do any more cleanup but should put a deeper layer of dirt on its former pesticide and herbicide manufacturing site on Central Avenue."

"Everybody knows what the tea party members oppose. High taxes. Big government. Obama's health care plan. High-speed rail. Now, for at least some local tea party members, there's one more to add: manatee protection."

"The 1,300-acre, man-made [Gaillard Island off Alabama's Gulf coast] is hosting more than 50,000 birds this summer as nesting pairs gather to raise babies. That number would be considered high in any year, but it's a particularly surprising sight a year after oil from the BP spill fouled surrounding waters."

"A federal appeals court handed Georgia an enormous victory in long-running, tri-state water litigation yesterday, overturning a decision by a federal judge that could have sharply curtailed the availability of water in Atlanta beginning next summer."

"The Kentucky coal industry's compliance with U.S. surface mining regulations dropped sharply from 2008 to 2010, while the environmental impact of the violations has worsened, federal records show."

"During an audit last year, federal authorities found an industrial plant had flushed pollutants into Columbia’s sewer system without making sure the contaminants were at legal levels."
 

"With head-spinning speed, the Florida House took up and passed a major rewrite of state environmental laws late Friday that Florida conservation groups call one of the worst environmental bills in decades."

Climate change may be global, but it is already changing local North Carolina ecosystems in myriad ways. Beaches are eroding, shorelines are retreating, and birds are shifting their winter ranges. Even insects, fish, and frogs are changing behavior.

"Aiming a legal shot directly across the bow of Gov. Rick Scott’s anti-regulation agenda, a Miami federal judge on Tuesday cleared the way for the federal government to do something he contends the state has failed to do for decades: Enforce water pollution standards tough enough to protect the Everglades."

"Gov. Rick Scott authorized state officials Friday to ask the federal Environmental Protection Agency to back off on water pollution rules that Florida business and agriculture interests as well as many local government officials say will be too costly to implement."

"It's a volatile time in the state budget process, and North Carolina's main environmental agency can do little but watch as legislators, led by a recently installed GOP majority, work to close an estimated $2.4-billion shortfall through sharp cuts to its budget."