Mid-Atlantic (DC DE MD PA VA WV)

"The Biden administration has granted a crucial permit for the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a project championed by Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, despite opposition from climate experts and environmental groups."

"The clock is ticking for the few healthy ash tree groves still in existence around D.C."

"A West Virginia logging company’s bid to establish a toxic-spewing facility in the picturesque Allegheny Mountains is drawing stiff pushback ahead of a public hearing planned for Thursday evening."

"When Shell Chemical Appalachia announced the start of a massive plastics manufacturing facility last November in western Pennsylvania, [it] ... touted the company’s “strong and innovative safety focus.” But now, just six months later, the plant has been the site of multiple malfunctions, including the leakage of benzene, a known carcinogen, along with other pollutants last month."

"Jeff Hoops built Blackjewel into the nation’s sixth largest coal company by acquiring bankrupt mines. When it declared bankruptcy, he pivoted to other ventures, leaving polluted streams and mud-shrouded roads in his wake."

"Unsterilized laboratory wastewater from the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Maryland, spewed out the top of a rusty 50,000-gallon outdoor holding tank, the pressure catapulting it over the short concrete wall that was supposed to contain hazardous spills."

"The hellbenders’ alarming change in behavior may be linked to deforestation, a new study found."

"The hellbender salamander has been called a lot of things. Snot otter. Mud devil. Old lasagna sides.

And now, perhaps: baby-eating cannibal, according to new research into the parental habits of these giant amphibians.

An eight-year study of hellbenders living in the cold, rocky rivers of southwestern Virginia has found that male salamanders are increasingly consuming their own young in areas near decimated forests.

"The Biden administration has thrown its weight behind the Mountain Valley pipeline, a major natural gas project favored by West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin and opposed by environmental advocates."