"People in North Texas worry about tornadoes, not earthquakes. That's not the case in the small town of Cleburne, just south of Fort Worth. They've had six quakes so far this month. Cleburne happens to sit on a huge, recently discovered natural gas deposit called Barnett Shale. There's been a lot of drilling, and some people wonder if that has triggered the earthquakes."

"The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday made public a list of 26 communities in 10 states where residents are potentially threatened by coal ash storage ponds similar to one that flooded a neighborhood in Tennessee last year."

"The earthen dikes supporting a huge coal ash landfill at a Tennessee power plant were 'on the verge of failure' long before they collapsed and sent tons of toxic muck into a river and lakeside community, an engineering consultant said Thursday."

"A coalition of environmental groups today formally asked three federal agencies to make public the list of 44 coal ash disposal sites across the country that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has classed as 'high hazard.'"

Advanced geothermal technology -- deep drilling to fracture rock far underground -- threatens to cause earthquakes when deployed along faults. The Energy Department is funding private firms to try such projects in the U.S.

"The Environmental Protection Agency yesterday declared its first-ever 'public health emergency,' saying the federal government will funnel $6 million to provide medical care for people sickened by asbestos from a mine in northwest Montana."