Mid-Atlantic (DC DE MD PA VA WV)

"COROLLA, N.C. -- On a stretch of barrier island without paved roads, some of the last wild horses in the eastern United States are seeing their world get smaller each year."

EPA has reissued the operating permit for the world's largest sewage treatment plant -- Blue Plains, which handles sewage from most of the DC metro area. Despite huge improvements in the Potomac River since the 1960s, Blue Plains needs to reduce its nitrogen discharge another 45 percent to protect the Chesapeake Bay.

"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."

Eight small earthquakes in central West Virginia since April have Chesapeake Energy and the state Department of Environmental Protection discussing the possibility of seismic monitoring near a disposal well for gas-drilling fluids."

"James J. Lee divided the world into good and bad. According to his writings on a Web site he created, people were bad, especially 'parasitic' babies."

"Chesapeake oysters are a succulent treat that for centuries have been loved almost to extinction.  But some scientists and business people are making headway in bringing back the bivalve, for the sake of oyster lovers and the bay."

Residents of West Virginia's Raleigh County hope to save Coal River Mountain from being destroyed by mountaintop removal mining by building a wind energy project there.

"It's ... difficult to get an absolute answer about just what is, or isn't, in Delaware's water -- difficult enough that some real estate agents routinely suggest water-filter installations even in the absence of known problems."

"It's simply known as 'the wall,' a steel-and-concrete structure costing about $22 million that will be pounded deep into the floor of the Elizabeth River near one of the worst toxic-waste sites in Hampton Roads."

"The Delaware River Basin Commission hasn't heard the last word on natural gas  drilling in northeast Pennsylvania. It agreed last week to hold further hearings there on its drilling moratorium."