"LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The sooty-looking black gunk has been here for as long as anyone can remember, creeping on the outside of homes, spreading over porch furniture, blanketing car roofs, mysterious and ever-present."

"As the Caribbean grapples with the pollution of its waters, the ratification of a protocol designed to help arrest the problem appears to be gathering steam."

"KINGSTON, Jamaica -- An extensive fuel spill has fouled a stretch of shoreline and oiled pink flamingos and other wildlife in a nature preserve in Curacao, conservationists and residents of the tiny Dutch Caribbean island said Monday."

The gas drilling industry says fracking hasn't been linked to water contamination. But it has.

"A settlement reached in federal court promises an accelerated attack on pollution from the labyrinth of pipes under Boston and from pavement runoff, an effort designed to prevent raw sewage and other pollutants from reaching area waterways."

"SAN FRANCISCO -- The Center for Biological Diversity filed a legal petition with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Wednesday that asks the agency to set plastic pollution limits for ocean waters under the Clean Water Act."

"NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The Tennessee Valley Authority is liable for a huge spill of toxin-laden sludge in 2008 in Tennessee, a federal judge ruled Thursday."

"The fallout has begun just one day after a federal appeals court scrapped a major EPA rule designed to curb long-distance drifting power plant pollution -- and Louisville's air quality may pay the price."

"WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court on Tuesday overturned a federal rule that laid out how much air pollution states would have to clean up to avoid incurring violations in downwind states.

 The decision sends the Environmental Protection Agency, and perhaps even Congress, back to the drawing board in what has become a long and paralyzing argument over how to mesh a system of state-by-state regulation with the problem of industrial smokestacks pumping pollutants into a single atmosphere.