"Imported insects have been deployed as foot soldiers in the fight against invasive bugs and plants that cause billions of dollars in damage each year. But some of those imports are proving to be pests themselves that upset the balance of nature and threaten native species."

"The White House is crafting an executive order aimed at toughening federal policies restricting the construction of dams, levees, roads and other structures in flood-prone areas."

With a push from EPA and some stimulus money, two contaminated Alaskan mines will be cleaned up.

"Scientists have underestimated the potential for a giant quake and tsunami that could swamp much the U.S. northwest and Canadian west coasts, British and U.S. researchers said on Monday."

"The environmental damage caused by mountaintop removal mining across Appalachia has been well documented. But scientists are now beginning to understand that the mining operations’ most lasting damage may be caused by the massive amounts of debris dumped into valley streams."

Having learned from past efforts to pass climate legislation, Senate Environment Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) is trying to increase buy-in by encouraging six other committees to stake a claim on the bill.

"Back in the 1980s and 90s, dozens of communities across the US built incinerators to get rid of their trash. Many of them financed the massive furnaces with bonds they're just now paying off. And now that those debts are off their books, some cities are re-thinking whether burning trash makes environmental and economic sense."

"World climate negotiators will gather in Bonn next month to edit an 'indigestible' set of proposals into a manageable document for international consideration, the head of a key U.N. panel said on Tuesday."

"Fruit and nut orchards in the Central Valley rely on winter chilling hours, but those are in decline, according to a UC Davis study."

"The Colorado River system -- which 30 million people depend on for drinking and irrigation water -- could fully deplete all of its reservoir storage by the middle of the century, a new University of Colorado study shows."

"Tops and tails are becoming much more than garbage at Gills Onions, an onion processor in Oxnard, Calif. Today marks the unveiling of the company's onion-powered electrical system, a first-of-its-kind initiative to turn onion waste into energy."

"Rainbow trout are rebounding in the Madison River, the world-class fishing stream where Montana's first known outbreak of whirling disease occurred about 15 years ago, devastating the rainbow fishery."

"For generations, people in Leadwood have lived near huge piles of dangerous, lead-contaminated mining waste. Now the EPA has decided the answer to the problem is to pile on more lead-tainted earth. To many folks, that makes no sense at all."

"In a modest victory for environmentalists, the Obama administration said Monday that it was designating nearly one million acres of Arizona land near the Grand Canyon off limits to new uranium mining claims for two years."

"Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster is investigating whether a state agency violated the law by not releasing data showing E. coli bacteria above safe levels in the Lake of the Ozarks."