If you are a fly-fisher, you may go to Michigan's Au Sable River to get away from it all. But you can't get away from the pollution funded by secret money in American politics. NPR turns over some rocks.

"EDMONTON -- Geotechnical engineers remained at the Obed Mountain coal mine Sunday trying to determine how one billion litres of murky water leaked from a containment pond into the Athabasca River."

"Look no further than the Carolina coast to see what kind of damage a coal-fired power plant can do to underground sources of drinking water."

"DENVER -- Four cities along [Colorado's] Front Range will decide Tuesday whether to halt new oil and gas development when voters cast their ballots on a series of local initiatives."

"Toxic heavy metals found on the construction site of a planned $55 million replacement for the former Booker T. Washington High School in New Orleans will require the removal of 3 feet of soil in areas that won't be covered by the new building's concrete foundation or parking lots, according to a report submitted on behalf of the Recovery School District to the state Department of Environmental Quality."

"MODESTO, Calif. – The students filing into Bret Harte Elementary School every morning barely notice the flags fluttering by the school's main entrance. There is the American flag, the California state flag and the color-coded asthma flag – green when the air is clear, red when it is a respiratory nightmare, as it so often is here."

"Authorities in Texas confirmed about 400 barrels of crude oil spilled near Austin from a pipeline owned by Koch Pipeline Co."

"Faced with complaints about black clouds of dust swirling into two Chicago neighborhoods, state environmental regulators are cracking down on one of the companies piling up huge mounds of refinery waste on the Southeast Side."

"The Italian Senate is investigating a cluster of cancers near Naples which may have been caused by the mafia's dumping of toxic waste. It's a question that has long been on the conscience of one former mafia boss, who says it was not the violence but pollution that made him turn police informer."