Bushmills Ethanol in Atwater has agreed to pay a civil penalty after discharging polluted wastewater from 2008 and 2011 and providing false information about those discharges.

The Land of 10,000 Lakes is apparently the perfect laboratory for testing insect repellant. This summer, some brave volunteers are helping researchers monitor mosquito bites.

U.S. Rep. Chip Cravaack says new emissions standards enacted by the Environmental Protection Agency are a threat to Minnesota's mining industry. The rules are aimed at reducing the haze over northeastern Minnesota. Cravaack calls them an assault on jobs and says the federal government should let the state enforce pollution rules.

Friday looks like another of those muggy days that keep air pollution trapped near the ground. The Pollution Control Agency has issued an air quality advisory for the Twin Cities and Rochester from noon to midnight. Conditions got bad enough on Wednesday that the agency upgraded its advisory to a health alert.

A consortium of six North Dakota utilities and coal mining companies is chipping in $500,000 to fight Minnesota's ban on energy generated by burning coal. The state's Industrial Commission filed the original lawsuit. The North Dakota legislature is also committing funds for the legal challenge.

Eden Prairie-based Supervalu said it will reduce its workforce by cutting supermarket-level jobs at its Albertson's stores in California and Nevada. Albertsons is the largest retail subsidiary of the Supervalu, with 247 stores in the western United States. Supervalu owns a dozen supermarket chains, including Cub Foods in the Twin Cities.

The company has agreed to pay the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency over air quality violations. The Lake County News-Chronicle reports the violations were for excessive levels of fine dust that is unhealthy to breathe. The paper says Northshore is also taking steps to ensure the violation doesn't happen again.