"Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn signed legislation Sunday banning the manufacture and sale of personal care products containing plastic microbeads."

"RALEIGH, N.C. — Environmental and wildlife officials in North Carolina and Virginia signed an agreement with Duke Energy Monday for the cleanup of toxic coal ash from the Dan River, which flows through the two states."

"Design problems with a blowout prevention system contributed to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster, and the same equipment is still commonly used in drilling four years after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, according to a report issued by the federal Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board."

"Citing what he said was 'extensive scientific evidence,' a federal judge has ruled for the first time that conductivity pollution from mountaintop removal mining operations is damaging streams in Southern West Virginia."

"The Sierra Nevada is rising. Drought-stricken farmers in the Central Valley are pumping more and more water from the valley's huge aquifer beneath them, and the drainage is triggering unexpected earthquakes along the San Andreas Fault, scientists have discovered."

"Federal safety regulators warned on Thursday that another disastrous offshore oil well blowout could happen despite regulatory improvements in the four years since a BP well explosion in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 workers and dumped millions of gallons of oil into the sea."

"California's brown pelicans, nearly driven to extinction by poisons a half century ago, are in trouble again, and no one knows why."

"Officials from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Coast Guard announced Monday they were working to mitigate damage from a spill of crude oil within the Delta National Wildlife Refuge."