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Georgia "collected more than $30 million in fees from Georgians last year for programs designed to clean up landfills, tire dumps and hazardous sites and to improve 911 services. The governor and state lawmakers put less than $2 million of the fee revenue toward those programs."

"Grand Bois residents called for more testing of the air, water and soil around an oil-waste storage and treatment site Tuesday night as they gathered to protest the company’s latest permit applications."

"Florida marine conservationists have come up with a simple recipe for fighting the invading lionfish that is gobbling up local reef life -- eat them."

"The lawsuits being filed against the Environmental Protection Agency are piling up, and more are likely to come following the agency’s decision to set nutrient pollution limits for Florida’s waters."

"Manatees died in record-breaking numbers this year, but not from being hit by boats or poisoned by Red Tide. Instead, the largest group of the 699 manatees that were killed as of Dec. 5 were done in by bad weather."

"Florida filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday to block new water pollution controls in the recession-hit state."

"In 2008, [some North Carolina residents] discovered what the state had known for several years: Groundwater near their neighborhood had been contaminated with trichloroethylene, a chemical compound often used as an industrial solvent and suspected to cause cancer."

A possible cancer cluster near Spartansburg, S.C., has residents suspecting it was caused by illegal disposal of chemical wastes from a Hoechst chemical plant nearby.

Florida is considering new water quality standards that would force industries and utilities to reduce the amount of pollution they dump into the state's waterways. Industry lobbyists argue against them, claiming they would cost too much. But Department of Environmental Protection officials have questioned industry-written cost estimates.