"DANVILLE, Ill. -- It's been more than two years since Dynegy shut down its coal-fired Vermilion Power Station, but environmental concerns still remain at the idled facility's coal-ash waste ponds that were built next to the Middle Fork River, just upstream of Kickapoo State Park and other protected lands."

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says 300,000 Americans are getting Lyme disease every year, and the toll is growing."

"New research finds that copper in amounts readily found in our drinking water, the foods we eat and the vitamin supplements we take likely plays a key role in initiating and fueling the abnormal protein build-up and brain inflammation that are hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease."

"While the mineral is important to healthy nerve conduction, hormone secretion and the growth of bones and connective tissue, a team of researchers from the University of Rochester Medical Center suggested that too much of it may be a bad thing, and they set about to explore copper's dark side.

"WASHINGTON, DC -- To protect bees and other pollinators, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has developed new pesticide labels that prohibit use of some neonicotinoid pesticide products where bees are present. Environmentalists want the agency to take these pesticides off the market."

"Building the Keystone XL pipeline would lead to more manmade light and noise in sparsely populated regions, which may harm natural resources, wildlife and visitors to national parks, the U.S. Interior Department said."

"WASHINGTON — A troubled new computer system used by inspectors at the nation’s 6,500 meatpacking and processing plants shut down for two days this month, putting at risk millions of pounds of beef, poultry, pork and lamb that had left the plants before workers could collect samples to check for E. coli bacteria and other contaminants."

"The US Bureau of Reclamation announced the cut Friday, from Lake Powell, because of drought conditions. While the move involving the Colorado River will be hard for people to detect at the faucet, it carries symbolic importance."

"A study on the fetuses of pregnant rhesus macaque monkeys has shown that exposure to the chemical bisphenol A, or BPA, led to changes in their lungs that increased the potential for developing asthma."

"NASA is getting ready to turn its scientific instruments toward our home planet with a trio of Earth-observing missions set to launch in 2014."

"The University of California at Berkeley cut laboratory financing this week for a professor who has complained for years about corporate-led retaliation for his association of health risks with a widely used herbicide."  The herbicide is atrazine.