For years Hunts Point, New York residents have had to live with automotive junkyards, scrap yards and waste transfer stations that make their neighborhood look like a set from the movie about a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Recently released figures from the EPA rank the Lafarge cement plant in Ravena fourth on the list of cement plants nationally in terms of toxic mercury emissions.

More than 18 percent of New Yorkers smoke, but the rate climbs as high as 92 percent among the 1.8 million people dealing with alcoholism and substance abuse.

Several residents in the town's wind district are worried that construction of massive windmills will cause contamination of their wells.

As New York seeks to produce 25 percent of its energy through renewable sources by 2013, the push by developers and the state to expand wind farms is creating unintended results.

To help jump-start redevelopment projects across the state, Gov. David A. Paterson signed a law yesterday that reforms the state's Brownfield Cleanup Program. The legislation caps redevelopment tax credits and increases incentives for the cleanup of affected areas.

A bill that would exempt recreational boat owners from paying the same permits as oil tankers and freight ships was approved in Congress yesterday, Sen. Charles Schumer said.

Remember when former Gov. Hugh Carey offered to drink a glass of PCBs to show that the chemical, tons of which General Electric Co. dumped into the Hudson River from the mid-1940s to the mid-1970s, is harmless?

Mercury levels in several varieties of Hudson River fish have declined significantly over the past three decades, researchers have found in an analysis that points to dramatically decreasing concentrations of industrial pollution.

Gov. David Paterson signed a law Wednesday that makes it easier for natural gas companies to use an environmentally risky underground drilling technique, promising his administration will also give regulators more power to prevent damage that has occurred in other gas-producing states

Natural gas drillers may have to wait a bit before they get down to business in the Southern Tier.

A leading environmental group this week called for a more environmentally sustainable city and issued a series of guidelines to make that possible.

The current debate over global warming has obscured a fact that should not be debatable — namely that the planet is and has been environmentally degraded by the human footprint, particularly since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

Gov. David Paterson is scheduled to sign legislation this afternoon that will provide more incentives to clean up polluted sites, cap tax credits for redevelopment and increase fiscal accountability for the tax breaks.

New York becomes the first state in the nation to ban smoking in substance abuse treatment centers Wednesday, which is also the fifth anniversary of the Clean Indoor Air act that banned smoking in restaurants and workplaces.

The American Lung Association of New York commends DEC for proposing strict regulations, as prohibiting backyard burning will go a long way toward cleaning up the air we breathe.

Niagara County lawmakers are attempting to throw some roadblocks in front of 75,000 tons of contaminated waste bound for the Town of Porter.

The Stillwater Town Supervisor recently found out there are some PCB's in the water supply now. He's worried about what will happen during dredging.

Though PCBs were recently found in drinking water in Poughkeepsie and Rhinebeck, the state Department of Health says the systems tested were all within drinking water standards set under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act.

PCBs have turned up in the village's drinking water and even though levels are considered safe, village officials are looking for another place to get water, according to Mayor Ernest Martin.