SE (AL AR FL GA KY LA MS NC PR SC TN)

"In the first update to the state’s water quality standards in 24 years, the state moved to allow more toxic substances to enter the water. Environmentalists decry, and businesses support, the proposal."

"A coalition of environmental groups went to federal court Wednesday to stop a Texas company's plan to explore for oil and gas in the Big Cypress National Preserve."

"The U.S. Navy confirmed Tuesday that ship shock trials with 10,000 pounds of explosives were conducted on Saturday and earlier in June, on the same dates as earthquake reports in the Atlantic Ocean off the Florida coast."

"The Tennessee Valley Authority's Colbert and Widows Creek power plants have already burned their last piece of coal to generate electricity, but some environmentalists are worried that the tons of coal ash left behind in watery ponds could cause environmental problems long after the burners were turned off."

"The mostly working-class, black neighborhood of Uniontown, Ala., claimed a coal ash landfill was ruining their community. They got sued for it."

"As a noxious algae bloom fouls beaches on Florida's Atlantic coast, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is preparing to reduce the flow of water from Lake Okeechobee that many blame for fueling the problem."

"The BP oil disaster cost the Gulf of Mexico's commercial fishing industry $94.7 million to $1.6 billion and anywhere from 740 to 9,315 jobs in the first eight months, according to a new study by the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management."

"The Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and Alabama Department of Environmental Management are investigating a fish kill on the Mulberry Fork of the Black Warrior River, in the immediate vicinity of the Gorgas Generating Plant, a coal-fired power plant operated by Alabama Power."

"The Tennessee Valley Authority has determined that capping the coal ash impoundment at the Colbert Fossil Plant is the most economically feasible option, a decision that does not sit well with some environmentalists."