"Virginia is about to limit state regulators' ability to protect public health and the environment from toxic discharges entering state waters from surface coal mines."

"The Chesapeake Bay's beleaguered oyster population spawned a bumper crop of babies last year, state officials announced Monday, and there are signs that the diseases that have ravaged the bay's bivalves for more than two decades might have loosened their stranglehold."

"In a special report, The Baltimore Sun chronicles a movement under way to purge the trash, bacteria and pollution that have long infected the city's watery heart."

"It was not enough for Pennye Jones-Napier to sell eco-friendly chew toys or fair-trade collars at her Takoma Park pet store, the Big Bad Woof. She wanted to make sure her customers could hold her accountable to the sustainable practices she preached."

Federal investigators Wednesday outlined allegations of safety violations as the likely factors that combined to produce the huge explosion that killed 29 miners on April 5 at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch Mine.