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A chemical spill along the Elk River in West Virginia has left close to 300,000 people without access to tap water for the past 5 days. The spill originated from a facility run by chemical company Freedom Industries.

The West Virginia chemical spill last month cost businesses $61 million, according to a preliminary economic impact study by the Marshall University Center for Business and Economic Research.

Just as it was being called out for using the dirtiest mix of energy among Internet giants, Amazon Web Services  announced this week a deal to build an 80-megawatt solar farm to power its east coast data centers. It will invest $150 million towards construction of a solar farm in Virginia where the majority of its data centers exist - and where the incumbent utility Dominion Virginia relies on fossil fuels for all but 2 percent of its generation. 

Virginia-based pork producer Smithfield Foods announced plans to reduce its carbon emissions by 25% during the next eight years. This is the largest planned cut by any US-based meat packer, according to the Environmental Defense Fund.

Amazon Web Services unveiled five new solar projects in Virginia, totaling 180 MW of renewable energy capacity. The projects include four 20 MW solar farms, and one 100 MW facility. The projects will be operational before the end of 2017.

Skanska has turned its Elizabeth River Tunnels project in Virginia into an example of how civil construction can improve its environmental impact while augmenting modern infrastructure. The company has a recycling/reuse rate of 99% for the project, and its creative ways to benefit the surrounding environment include using concrete waste to create oyster habitats. 

U.S. federal authorities recently executed search warrants at two Virginia facilities belonging to Lumber Liquidators Holdings, the largest specialty retailer of hardwood flooring in the United States.

At the University of Miami's Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Brian McNoldy and other researchers have been accumulating sea level data from Virginia Key (a small island just south of Miami Beach) since 1996. Over those nineteen years, sea levels around the Miami coast have already gone up 3.7 inches.