"Maryland is fining the owner of two of the state's largest coal power plants $1 million for dumping too much nitrogen into the Potomac and Patuxent rivers, one of the largest penalties state environmental regulators have levied in years."

"Serious algae outbreaks have hit more than 20 states this summer. Organisms are shutting down beaches in Florida, sickening swimmers in Utah and threatening ecosystems in California."

"FUKUSHIMA DAIICHI NUCLEAR POWER STATION — The part above ground doesn’t look like much, a few silver pipes running in a straight line, dwarfed by the far more massive, scarred reactor buildings nearby."

If a kid catches a big walleye on the St. Louis River estuary in Duluth, the state warns her not to eat it. Ever.

"Scientists led by researchers with the U.S. Geological Survey have found an elevated number of cases of skin and liver tumors in white suckers in the Milwaukee, Menomonee and Kinnickinnic rivers — a discovery that suggests more work will be needed to remove contaminants from the waterways."

"Study finds a cocktail of legal and illegal drugs in Baltimore's Gwynns Falls, most likely from city's leaking sewers".

"ST. LOUIS -- Water samples from 16 schools in the city school system contained lead levels that exceeded those most commonly found in homes in Flint, Mich., after a contamination crisis there, according to results released Thursday by an environmental engineering company."

The emissions cheating scandal badly damaged the businesses of many U.S. Volkswagen dealerships. Now VW has agreed to pay  them some $1.2 billion.

"Air pollution in Singapore rose to the "unhealthy" level on Friday as acrid smoke drifted over the island from fires on Indonesia's Sumatra island, the city-state's National Environment Agency (NEA) said, in a repeat of an annual crisis."

"Have oil and gas companies injected toxic materials into Texas groundwater sources? State regulators don't know, even though they agreed in 1982 to track injections into zones that could hold underground sources of drinking water, according to records obtained by The Texas Tribune."