National (U.S.)

Drilling for gas and oil can be safe or it can be dangerous.

"Federal officials have given energy and mining companies permission to pollute aquifers in more than 1,500 places across the country, releasing toxic material into underground reservoirs that help supply more than half of the nation's drinking water. In many cases, the Environmental Protection Agency has granted these so-called aquifer exemptions in Western states now stricken by drought and increasingly desperate for water."

"ATLANTA -- If disaster strikes a nuclear power plant in the U.S., the utility industry wants the ability to fly in heavy-duty equipment that could avert a meltdown."

The American chestnut once dominated the forest landscape from Georgia to Maine. Then the blight struck, and by the 1950s, it was all but extinct. Now, after 30 years of breeding and crossbreeding, the American Chestnut Foundation believes it has developed a blight-resistant tree.

"The federal government has come up with dozens of ways to enhance the diminishing flow of the Colorado River, which has long struggled to keep seven states and roughly 25 million people hydrated."

"An unusually late fire season may bring coal to more than a few Christmases this year. Ongoing drought conditions across much of the West, Midwest and South have left ample fuel for ignition, keeping firefighters on edge and raising alerts in a number of states."

"After two federal judges recused themselves from a criminal case against former BP PLC managers indicted for their role in the Deepwater Horizon disaster, a third has made disclosures of his own."

"Drought continued to expand through the central United States even as winter weather sets in, wreaking havoc on the nation's new wheat crop and on movement of key commodities as major shipping waterways grow shallow."

"MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- Slurry pond failures like the one that swallowed a bulldozer and its driver last week at a West Virginia coal mine could be avoided if the waste pits were built to strict construction standards that regulators ignore, said a mine safety expert and frequent critic of the coal industry."

"Cheatgrass is about as Western as cowboy boots and sagebrush. It grows in yellowish clumps, about knee high to a horse, and likes arid land. One thing cheatgrass does is burn — in fact, more easily than anyone realized. That's the conclusion from a new study that says cheatgrass is making Western wildfires worse."