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Groundwater pollution from hexavalent chromium from Pacific Gas & Electric led to the "a $333-million-dollar, class-action settlement in 1996 -- one of the largest of all time -- and inspired the 2000 blockbuster movie bearing [Erin] Brockovich's name." Despite the settlement, PG&E has "done little to contain the plume of hexavalent chromium, which U.S. EPA deemed a likely carcinogen in a draft assessment last year."

"New York State's attorney general has sent subpoenas to three large energy companies as part of a broad investigation into whether they have accurately described to investors the prospects for their natural gas wells, according to several sources familiar with the inquiry."

"Seattle is the home of the U.S. Coast Guard's entire fleet of polar-class icebreakers.

Both of them.

Capt. George Pellissier commands both the Polar Sea and the Polar Star. He has spent much of his career on these ships, which were built in Seattle in the 1970s.

"A human fecal bacterium kills coral, new research shows, and U.S. scientists say this is a warning to Florida and the Caribbean to protect prized reefs from sewage or face a threat to a key pillar of their tourism."

"The paper mill lnked to a substantial fish kill in the Pearl River system cautiously admitted responsibility Wednesday, as the trail of dead fish reached Lake Pontchartrain and a reservoir near Jackson, Miss., was opened in an attempt to flush the pollutants out.

"A third or more of all the honey consumed in the U.S. is likely to have been smuggled in from China and may be tainted with illegal antibiotics and heavy metals.  A Food Safety News investigation has documented that millions of pounds of honey banned as unsafe in dozens of countries are being imported and sold here in record quantities."

For the last several years, Pacific coast oyster populations, farmed and wild, have suffered massive, mysterious die-offs. It turns out the culprit is probably ocean acidification -- a consequence of human emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Eric Scigliano reports for onearth August 17, 2011.

"Plants and animals are responding up to three times faster to climate change than previously estimated, as wildlife shifts to cooler altitudes and latitudes, researchers said on Thursday."

"At long last, mainstream media begins to pay attention to the flat denial of basic climate science being pushed by right-wing Republican presidential candidates."

"A giant South American rodent weighing at least 100 pounds (45 kgs) was spotted at a waste-water treatment facility in California recently before disappearing in the brush, according to a wildlife official."