WBEZ 91.5 Chicago

Volunteers for the Great Lakes Alliance Adopt-A-Beach program hit the beaches after a season of record-low water. And they may find romance there.

The last barge carrying coal to Pilsen’s Fisk Power Plant lumbered up the Chicago canal in late August, dumping a final 1,500 tons of coal to burn in a community whose members were more than happy to see their industrial neighbor go.

Sylvia Hood Washington discusses her pioneering book, "Packing Them In: An Archaeology of Environmental Racism in Chicago, 1865-1954," which documents how generations of Chicago's poor, working class and ethnic minority residents have suffered disproportionately from the harmful effects of pollution.

Toxic emissions from Illinois industry increased more than 10 percent in 2010 over the year before, but pollution has still been trending downward over the last decade.Illinois companies emitted more than 100 million pounds of poisonous gasses, heavy metals and other chemicals.

Saying that "reducing regulatory burdens and regulatory uncertainty, particularly as our economy continues to recover" prompted his administration to rethink, President Obama just announced that he's withdrawing proposed regulations that would have tightened government smog standards in a bid to pro

The city of Chicago could be near the end of a five-year legal battle for control of a former industrial site with potential to help form a 24-acre park. If an eminent-domain settlement holds up, the land could be an asset for a Mexican-American area of the Southwest Side.

NASA, the agency best known for exploring space, is trying to answer some urgent questions about air pollution right here on Earth.For much of July, the agency flew research planes between Washington, D.C. and Baltimore as part of a mission known as DISCOVER-AQ.