"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is on schedule to release federal guidelines for the disposal of coal ash some time this month, but a potential loophole in the new rules has some worried they will leave Iowans unprotected."

"Maryland plans to dramatically increase the area of the Chesapeake Bay that is closed to oyster harvests, Gov. Martin O'Malley said Thursday, offering an expanded foothold to an iconic species that has dropped to 1 percent of its peak population."

"Nearly 28 years after Congress authorized the Army Corps of Engineers to deepen the Delaware River's main shipping channel, the only thing about the project that has deepened is the controversy."

"A study released Wednesday which found that nine of 10 babies tested were born with bisphenol A in their systems has renewed calls for the chemical to be banned."

"For eight months, the Quebec government has been holding on to a report that explores the link between asbestos-related cancer and Canada's only community that still mines the substance."

"Environmental officials in Maine and a dozen other states issued a statement Wednesday saying federal laws to protect the public from toxic chemicals are too weak and states instead are leading the way."

"Germany's top climate researcher says he hopes he and his fellow scientists around the world have got it all wrong about global warming. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, head of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, told Reuters he gets no pleasure at all in being a prophet of doom and hopes he and his colleagues have overlooked effects that could still arrest climate change."

"New horizons in biomonitoring are identifying environmental exposures that may play a role in health problems, including cancer, neurological disorders and diabetes. At their fingertips, researchers already have precise measurements of nearly 150 chemicals in several thousand American adults and children."

"The release of toxics once bound within glaciers may be a little-anticipated consequence of climate change. Adverse effects are likely occurring, or could occur, on almost every continent."

"Changes in tap water chemistry can liberate lead from household plumbing pipes and the mineral scale that coats them, resulting in water that is contaminated only after it leaves the treatment plant."