"You never forget your first time seeing a giant salamander, according to Andy Hill. He was a teenager, standing thigh-high in the Watauga River outside Boone, North Carolina, casting a line on an early fall day when he saw his first eastern hellbender. The salamander stretched 2 feet long and was camouflaged among rocks beneath the clear water."

"Velsicol, a legacy polluter that manufactured pesticides, is proposing to hand over its 83-acre defunct facility in North Memphis to Tennessee as an environmental response trust. Should the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) accept a settlement agreement from the company, the state will be left to determine what to do with wide-ranging contamination including a baseball diamond-shaped pile of hazardous waste and a fluctuating groundwater plume of chemicals beneath it."

"Alachua County is preparing for a more dangerous future, even if the state government won't say "climate.""

"Skin rashes, breathing difficulties and “generational rage” led residents to join a nationwide push against companies accused of endangering health and the environment."

"If all 15 liquefied natural gas plants in Texas and Louisiana open, reductions in overall U.S. greenhouse gas emissions would slow"

"Carrboro officials say Duke Energy broke state laws waging decades-long ‘deception campaign’ about fossil fuels"

"Louisiana has long relied on a vast levee system to rein in the Mississippi River and protect surrounding communities from flooding. But cutting off the natural flow of the river with man made barriers has been slowly killing one of the nation’s largest forested wetlands."

"Mega-utility Duke Energy is about to knock down a coal plant that has run west of Charlotte, North Carolina, since 1957. Soon the company will build its largest grid battery on that spot, part of an unprecedented energy-storage construction spree."

"Until earlier this week, most residents of this town east of Asheville had no drinkable tap water for 52 days. After the storm damaged infrastructure around the region, water had been partly restored in mid-October. It was good for flushing toilets but not safe for consumption. In some places, sediment left the water inky like black tea."