Southwest (AZ NM OK TX)

"FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has issued its final rule aimed at cleaning up the largest single source of haze-causing pollutants in the country."

"Work was scarce for architect David Mullican and many Galveston Island builders after hurricane Ike. As damages were assessed, insurance claims disputed and homes were repaired piecemeal, Mullican was out of work for more than a year."

"OKLAHOMA CITY -- Some Oklahoma residents have returned to emergency shelters despite evacuation orders in many areas of the state being lifted, as wildfires continued to burn."

"OKLAHOMA CITY -- More than 64 temperature records were broken in Oklahoma during a scorching July, and additional ones fell across the state Wednesday on the first day of August, according to the National Climatic Data Center."

"GALVESTON - With the world focused on a BP rig explosion in the spring of 2010 that caused the worst oil spill in U.S. history, a massive release of pollutants from the company's Texas City refinery went largely unnoticed."

"PRAGUE, Okla. -- Jerri Loveland sees a connection between the oil drilling that surrounds her home and the earthquake last November that upended her life."

"Flares, leaking pipelines and tanks emitted 92,000 tons of toxic chemicals into the air during accidents, break-downs and maintenance at Texas oil and gas facilities, refineries and petrochemical plants over the past three years, finds a report released today by the nonprofit Environmental Integrity Project, EIP."

"They pray for rain these days across a drought-stricken American west. The very idea – a light shower, even an inch of rain – fills Walter Dasheno with dread. Dasheno is the governor of the Santa Clara pueblo, a Native American community living just below a canyon of the same name."

"A new water-purification system using solar power to purify contaminated groundwater holds promise for solving water problems not only on the Navajo Nation, where it is being tested, but for many other indigenous communities as well."