"Candidates are lining up behind the issue of gas drilling as the controversial method called hydrofracking takes center stage this election season in the Finger Lakes region."

"The story of Hilmar is a classic tale of a company growing rapidly, bringing good jobs but also environmental threats to a rural farm community. In an ironic twist, though, it isn’t corporate outsiders pitted against town residents; the owners of Hilmar Cheese are descendants of the community’s founding families. Much of the well water around the cheese plant, located in the agricultural heart of California, isn’t fit to drink. And Hilmar Cheese is the likely culprit, new documents show."

A blighted area of Indianapolis has at least 70 of the area's 500 abandoned commercial and industrial sites. The return of rail transport promises revitalization.

"A new government study adds to the evidence that thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative until recently found in many vaccines, does not increase children's risk of autism."

A study involving hundreds of families in Maine is finding high levels of arsenic in drinking water. The highest risk is for those drinking from private wills, which are not subject to regulation. In Maine, 56 percent of residents live in homes with private wells.

"U.S. Department of Agriculture experts found growing sanitary problems including bugs and overflowing trash earlier this year on the Iowa farm at the center of the national egg recall, but didn't notify health authorities, according to government documents and officials."

Author Bill McKibben and a group of activists have found the old solar panels that Jimmy Carter installed atop the White House, and that Ronald Reagan removed. McKibben's group 350.org has been hauling the panel on a publicity road trip to DC to urge Barack Obama to reinstall them. The symbolism has everything to do with the fossil industry's victory in quashing climate legislation, the future of a world climate treaty, and the political future of a president whom environmentalists see as AWOL on his campaign promises. McKibben has booked a meeting with Obama for today.

"The Environmental Protection Agency sent letters to nine drilling companies on Thursday requesting detailed information about the chemicals contained in fluids used to crack open underground rock formations in the hunt for oil and natural gas."

"In the rush to develop America's biggest new source of domestic energy, one community is fighting to protect its rural way of life from the environmental strains that accompany shale gas drilling."

"Hundreds of people packed a public hearing Wednesday in Dallas to sound off on a federal proposal to label the ash from coal-burning power plants a hazardous waste."