SE (AL AR FL GA KY LA MS NC PR SC TN)

"Duke Energy, the largest electric utility in the US, has agreed to provide dozens of families in North Carolina with bottled water after state testing found private wells near sites where the company stores coal waste contaminated with potentially toxic chemicals."

"Facing a thicket of candidates and ballot measures in the November election, Florida voters sent one resounding message to elected officials: More must be done to protect the state’s natural habitats — including the long-suffering Everglades."

"Two Tennessee environmental groups claim toxic pollution from a coal-burning power plant is seeping into the Cumberland River and state regulators are not doing enough to stop it."

"COLUMBIA, SC -- Evidence that a Duke Energy power plant site near Hartsville is more contaminated than previously suspected continues to grow as state regulators, environmentalists and company officials learn more about the property."

"Calling the deal too costly with too little benefit, the South Florida Water Management District board on Thursday effectively canned a 2010 deal to buy 46,800 acres of U.S. Sugar land that it once considered critical to restoring the Everglades and coastal estuaries."

"Ever since a serpent enticed Eve to munch on that forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, relations between humans and snakes have been at best strained. But at least the gullible Eve and her mate had to cope with just the one snake. In South Florida, wildlife officials have struggled for years with tens of thousands of the creatures: specifically, a species known as the Burmese python, an interloper from Southeast Asia that has taken up what looks like permanent residence in Everglades National Park and other areas of the state."

"U.S. power company Duke Energy Corp agreed to a $2.5 million settlement proposed by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality relating to the 2014 coal ash spill into the Dan River in North Carolina, the DEQ said on Friday."

"Five generations of Philip Vinson's family have labored using tongs to pull oysters from Apalachicola Bay's shallow waters. He fears there won't be a sixth."

"Duke Energy Florida announced plans Thursday to launch a major solar power effort that will produce electricity equivalent to that of a small power plant."

"North Carolinians should get ready for a sea-level rise over the next three decades that could be as little as 3.5 inches on the southern coast and as much as 10.6 inches in the northern Outer Banks, a state science advisory panel said Tuesday."