The U.S. House of Representatives last week dropped the controversial provision that would allow oil companies to drill in Alaska´s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But the proposal is likely to re-emerge, probably before the end of the year, according to this Associated Press article that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle yesterday.

The oil industry and the environmental lobby have both been working this Alaska-drilling issue feverishly. Both sides have a lot riding on it -- can you say "historic environmental watershed"? -- so we´ll be monitoring it closely to see what unfolds.

Speaking of watersheds, here´s a true-ringing opinion piece from the L.A. Canyon News about how polarized the nation is right now, environmentally speaking, from the standpoint of a man who considers himself a conservative and an environmentalist.

I would only add that it seems to me we´re polarized on practically every issue of importance facing us right now. We´ve allowed ourselves to be Michael-Moored, Ann-Coultered, Bill-O´Reillyed and Limbaugh-Franken-boozled into a state of obsessive-compulsive meanness, and it´s corroding us from the inside out. Sometimes I think it´s going to take a radical shift -- something on the order of a new, more moderate political party -- to blast us out of this rut of trench warfare we´re mired in.

OK, that´s enough fluff for one day. Let´s close on a sober note, shall we? It says here that the world-famous Black Lagoon of Trenton, Mich., has at last been colorized. The Detroit Free Press reports that the federal-state cleanup of the notoriously polluted Detroit River inlet -- the first such project under the Great Lakes Legacy Act program -- is finito.

And not a moment too soon. How many more calamities like this could the poor people of Trenton have endured?

Pete Fehrenbach is assistant managing editor of Waste News. Past installments of this column are collected in the Inbox archive.