"The State Water Control Board unanimously approved a complex and expansive permit Thursday that will allow Dominion Virginia Power to drain millions of gallons of wastewater from the coal ash ponds at its Chesterfield Power Station, the largest fossil fuel plant in Virginia, then treat it and discharge it into the James River."

"Officials around [Pennsylvania] are optimistic about the impact of Shell’s new ethane cracker on the local economy. It will bring thousands of construction jobs to western Pennsylvania and 600 permanent ones once it’s built along the Ohio River in Beaver County. The plant will produce 1.6 million tons of plastic a year out of the region’s natural gas."

"In many American cities, finding elevated lead levels in drinking water is enough to spark serious concern. But in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where many residents are delivered expensive, rust-colored and corrosive water, it’s just one of many of complaints."

"Hermine is expected to begin weakening as it churns hundreds of miles offshore in the Atlantic Ocean, but forecasters warn it could continue to impact areas from New York to southern New England with pounding waves, coastal flooding and beach erosion before it moves out to sea."

"Fierce winds and rain from Hurricane Hermine slammed Florida's northern Gulf Coast on Friday and power outages left tens of thousands of households in the dark."

"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."

"At least seven people were treated and several communities evacuated Saturday following an early morning leak of extremely toxic chlorine gas from a Northern Panhandle chemical plant with a recent history of significant safety problems."

"As Kevin Widener was growing up on his family’s tobacco farm in the rolling hills of southwest Virginia in the 1990s, lawmakers and lawyers in Washington were waging a war on smoking."

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

"Teamwork from Maryland environmentalists — from elementary schoolers to nonprofit workers — could result in new oyster habitat, and consequently cleaner water, for the Chesapeake Bay. Maryland Coastal Conservation Association members and partners dumped 70 concrete reef balls into the bay on Thursday, the first deployment for the organization's Living Reef Action Campaign."