"Just beneath the wind-stippled surface of the Hudson River here, huge pipes suck enough water into the Indian Point  nuclear plant every second to fill three Olympic swimming pools. And each second they take in dozens of organisms -- fish and crabs, but mostly larvae -- that are at the center of a $1.1 billion debate: should the plant have to put in cooling towers that would vastly reduce the intake of water?"

"BINGHAMTON  -- A pair of [New York] state legislators on Wednesday showed an improved version of a website mapping cancer instances statewide as well as buildings and other facilities holding chemicals, gases or producing air emissions."

"EDGARTOWN, Mass. — Standing alongside the 13th green at the Vineyard Golf Club on Martha’s Vineyard, Jeff Carlson spotted a small broadleaf weed between his feet. As the superintendent charged with maintaining the club grounds, he instinctively bent to pluck it, then stopped."

"Romeo Michaud looked at the Androscoggin River on Friday, remembering how he fished for hornpout as a boy. Over time, he and others stopped eating the fish they caught as the river became among the most polluted in the country."

"A disease that rots the shells of lobsters is threatening the Northeast’s $20-million lobster industry, scientists said Wednesday."

"The New York State Senate has approved at least a nine-month delay in issuing permits for a method of natural gas drilling, saying more study is needed to ensure it does not contaminate the state's water supply."

"New Jersey has seriously neglected patrolling its shellfish grounds for years, with inadequate enforcement on more than two-thirds of its waters, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration."

"Passions ran high at a meeting of the Delaware River Basin Commission, which is in the process of writing regulations governing drilling in the river basin."

Whole stands of oaks and hemlocks in New England are dying. "Scientists see a fingerprint of climate change in the denuded branches, and a pattern of things to come."