"On the coastal plain of eastern North Carolina, families in certain rural communities daily must deal with the piercing, acrid odor of hog manure—reminiscent of rotten eggs and ammonia—wafting from nearby industrial hog farms. On bad days, the odor invades homes, and people are often forced to cover their mouths and noses when stepping outside. Sometimes, residents say, a fine mist of manure sprinkles nearby homes, cars, and even laundry left on the line to dry."

"ATLANTA -- The Southern Co. makes billion-dollar decisions that affect millions of people in Georgia, yet it has attracted little political scrutiny — until now. Leaders of the Atlanta Tea Party are challenging Southern Co. subsidiary Georgia Power over the monopoly's reluctance to increase its use of solar power, the ballooning costs of building a new nuclear power plant and even its legal right to monopoly status."

"RALEIGH — Fish in one of North Carolina’s largest watersheds are more polluted by an industrial contaminant than previously reported, and state health officials have failed to expand warnings against eating PCB-contaminated fish, according to a new study."

"The Arkansas Department of Health says people with dizziness, nausea and headaches have the option to leave, and it is their personal choice."

"Louisiana will receive $340 million from BP in early Natural Resource Damage Assessment money for four projects to restore barrier islands and to finance two coastal science centers, Gov. Bobby Jindal announced Tuesday in a news conference in Jean Lafitte. The money comes from $1 billion that BP set aside in 2011 to build early projects to compensate for damages to natural resources resulting from the three-month flow of oil resulting from the blowout of BP's Macondo well in April 2010."

"After six years of searching, an entomologist has concluded that three varieties of butterflies native to south Florida have become extinct, nearly doubling the number of North American butterflies known to be gone."

""These are unique butterflies to Florida. This is our biological treasure. Each unique species that we lose, we won't ever get that back again," Marc Minno, who conducted the survey for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District, told Reuters on Monday.