"With their garish blooms, there's something special about orchids, and in the U.S., no place has more native species than Fakahatchee Strand Preserve. The state park in Southwest Florida was the setting for the 1998 book The Orchid Thief. Scientists there are working to bring back varieties lost through the years to poachers and habitat destruction."

"Louisiana's projections for funding its 50-year master plan for coastal restoration and hurricane storm surge protection are at least $71 billion short of the inflation-adjusted $91.7 billion price tag, according to a study released Friday (Nov. 6) by the Tulane Institute on Water Resources Law & Policy."

A little Louisiana town named Mossville, founded in the 1790s, was one of the first communities of free African-Americans in the South. Today it is surrounded by petrochemical plants. Its residents are often sick -- many say it is because of toxic emissions from the plants. They have gotten little or no help from the government. Now the company that owns the nearby plant wants to buy up all of the houses, which would consign Mossville to oblivion.

"Only two of 10 Barataria Bay bottlenose dolphins that were found to be pregnant in 2011, a year after the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion oiled the bay, had successful pregnancies. And the survival rate through July 2015 for adult dolphins that were given health assessments in the bay in 2011 is 10 percent lower than found in two studies of dolphins in un-oiled Sarasota Bay, Fla."

"NEW ORLEANS - Gulf coral damage from the massive BP oil spill is more extensive than previously thought, according to a new study that revealed sick and dying corals in the rich, deep-water environment off the coasts of Alabama and Mississippi known as the Pinnacles."

"After just two days, Florida ended its controversial black bear hunt because a higher than expected number of bears had been killed."

"RALEIGH, N.C. -- Conservation groups have asked judges in Wake and Mecklenburg counties to reject a $7 million agreement between [North Carolina] and Duke Energy to settle years of groundwater contamination violations."

"South Carolina's governor warned on Thursday that several coastal areas were about to be hit by a second round of major flooding, while residents inland hauled soaked furniture and appliances from homes left in ruins by unprecedented rainfall."

"COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Flooding from historic rainfall in South Carolina claimed two more lives on Wednesday, and the threat of further inundation from swollen rivers and vulnerable dams put already ravaged communities on edge."