Northeast (CT MA ME NH NJ NY RI VT)

"Brooklyn's Gowanus Canal, labeled 'one of the most contaminated bodies of water in the nation,' isn't just a filthy Superfund site. To urbanites, it's a little piece of the outdoors."

"A state Superior Court judge has ruled that the Occidental Chemical Corp. is liable for the $1 billion to $4 billion in costs associated with the cleanup of sediments in the lower Passaic River contaminated decades ago by Diamond Alkali/Diamond Shamrock Chemicals Corp., a now defunct Newark pesticide manufacturing plant."

"The rivers that run into New York Harbor will be unfit for recreational activities at least through Sunday because of a catastrophic fire that shut down one of the city’s largest sewage treatment plants, the city’s health department said Thursday."

"The latest draft of guidelines for hydraulic fracturing in New York could open the door to drilling within 1,000 feet of aging underground tunnels that carry water to New York City -- a far cry from the seven-mile buffer once sought by city officials."

"The Supreme Court decided [Monday] not to take up General Electric Co.'s legal campaign over how U.S. EPA exercises its authority to order companies to clean up hazardous waste sites."

"Tornadoes tore through Western and Central Massachusetts yesterday, killing at least four people, injuring an untold number, and reducing schools, churches, and homes to splinters along its destructive path."

"A top New York State official filed a lawsuit against the federal government on Tuesday to force an assessment of the environmental risks posed by drilling for natural gas in the Delaware River Basin, arguing that a regulatory commission should not issue final rules governing the drilling until a study is completed."

"Key committees writing rules for New Jersey's new program to clean up contaminated sites are made up entirely of the polluting companies and their contractors."

The ugly truth in Massachusetts is this: after some three decades and $1 billion worth of Superfund cleamup work at scores of toxic sites, nobody knows whether they are still poisoning people.