Recent tests found high levels of toxic chemicals called PCBs in the James River and some tributaries between Richmond and Hopewell. In some cases, levels of the chemicals were hundreds of times higher than the state limit, state officials said. The PCBs pose a threat to fish but not people, unless people eat contaminated fish, said Bill Hayden, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Quality.

Lawrence Latané III, a former staff writer for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, is the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s conservationist of the year. The environmental group made the announcement yesterday. Latané covered the bay from 1986 to 2008 from the Times-Dispatch’s Northern Neck bureau in Warsaw. He retired from journalism last year and operates Blenheim Organic Gardens, an organic farm, with his wife, Becky.

Newport News called an end yesterday to its two-decade effort to build a reservoir in King William County. Opponents had long considered the lake an affront to Indians and the environment. A memo from acting City Manager Neil A. Morgan recommended ending the project, and Mayor Joe S. Frank said yesterday afternoon that it is indeed dead.

The Wildlife Center of Virginia is releasing a bald eagle at Westover Plantation on the James River.

Virginia is revising—some say weakening—its proposed update of storm-water regulations in an effort to address critics. But the critics keep on criticizing. Nearly 40 people spoke during a Richmond meeting on the proposed rules yesterday. People in the building industry said the rules would drive up the cost of homes and other projects.

Opponents of a multistate power line that would run through northern Virginia are asking the Virginia Supreme Court to send the project back to state regulators for further deliberations.

Pollution, coupled with humankind’s compulsion to tinker with nature, has drastically changed the makeup of the James’ inhabitants.

The Times-Dispatch recently convened a panel of experts to hear their ideas on dealing with Virginia’s top environmental challenges. Here are excerpts.

The Obama administration proposed new requirements and incentives yesterday for cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay. The draft plans call for developing new regulations to reduce runoff pollution from urban, suburban and farm lands. The plans also call for better enforcing current pollution laws and punishing states—by withholding federal money, for example—that allow too much pollution in bay waters.

Punishing states that allow too much pollution in bay waters—by withholding federal money, for example;
creating new regulations to reduce pollution that runs off land during rains;
doing a better job of enforcing existing environmental rules;
increasing financial incentives for farmers to reduce pollution;
possibly expanding federal refuges and parks in the bay region; and

Unparalleled economic growth. Massive product safety recalls. Unrest among minority ethnic groups. Hardly a day goes by that you don’t see or hear news about China. While these news stories seem to be building in frequency and intensity, many reports raise more questions than answers. What is the real China? What are the Chinese people like? How can capitalism and communism co-exist?

Both sides in a dispute over a coal-fired power plant in far Southwest Virginia said they were happy after the state issued a new permit for the plant yesterday. David K. Paylor, director of the state Department of Environmental Quality, issued the permit shortly after a Richmond Circuit Court judge released an order setting aside the original permit.

Several environmental groups are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to consider whether the Army Corps of Engineers is properly issuing fill permits for mountaintop removal mines.

Richmond, we have liftoff. Three young peregrine falcons successfully took wing in downtown Richmond Tuesday and again yesterday. Volunteers and state game officials watched to make sure the birds didn’t plummet into traffic or get into some other kind of trouble. The only bird that had a problem was a female that tried a couple of times to latch on to windows. The bird would slide away, exhausted but OK.

Police in Italy say they have arrested two people for dumping raw cesspool sewage into the waters of Capri’s Blue Grotto.