WASHINGTON | Thu Jan 31, 2013 11:32am EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Chesapeake Bay, North America's biggest estuary, is still ailing but making some progress as it struggles to recover from over-fishing and pollution, a partnership overseeing its revival said on Thursday.

The number of juvenile crabs is the highest in two decades, rockfish are stable and last year's "dead zone," the part of the bay without enough oxygen to support life, seems to be the smallest since 1985, the Chesapeake Bay Program said in its 2011-12 "Bay Barometer."

On the down side, water clarity was very poor and only a third of the bay met standards for dissolved oxygen, a measure of water's health. The oyster population also was at less than 1 percent of historic levels.

"While we clearly have a lot of work to do, the bay is resilient and we have reason for hope," Nick DiPasquale, director of the federal and state program, said in a statement.

The Chesapeake Bay, home to more than 3,600 species of plants and animals, has been fouled by decades of over-fishing and pollution. Pollutants include sediment, manure, trash and chemicals that flow into it from its 64,000-square-mile (166,000-square-km) watershed across six states.

The Chesapeake Bay Program was formed in 1983 to restore the estuary, where salt water from the ocean mixes with fresh water. It includes Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, the District of Columbia, the Environmental Protection Agency and citizens groups.

The group said that most of the bay's feeder freshwater streams were in poor or very poor condition. Water murkiness and algae levels in 2011 were the worst since 2009.

But the big Susquehanna Flats grass bed survived Tropical Storm Lee in 2011. In another sign of health, grasses in the middle of the Chesapeake showed "dramatic increases," the program said.

The adult female crab population was still within the sustainable range in 2012 despite falling for two years.

Nitrogen and phosphorus, components in fertilizers that contribute to algae growth, each moved about 20 percent closer to their targets from July 2009 to June 2011 under a bay "pollution diet."

Sediment was about 30 percent nearer its target, helped by more forested buffers being planted to limit runoff into streams and rivers.

In a separate report, the U.S. Geological Survey said this month that nutrient and sediment trends at nine bay monitoring sites had shown an overall lack of improvement through 2010.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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Chesapeake Energy Corporation's 50 acre campus is seen in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on April 17, 2012.

ATLANTA | Thu Aug 9, 2012 8:03pm EDT

ATLANTA (Reuters) - Chesapeake Energy said it is the subject of a U.S. government investigation over possible criminal antitrust violations related to the purchase and lease of oil and gas properties in Michigan.

Chesapeake has received a subpoena from the antitrust division of the Justice Department's Midwest field office, requiring the company to produce documents before a grand jury in the Western District of Michigan, according to a filing with U.S. regulators on Thursday.

In June, Reuters reported that Chesapeake plotted with its top competitor, Canada's Encana Corp, to suppress land prices in the Collingwood shale in Northern Michigan.

Emails between Chesapeake and Encana showed the two companies repeatedly discussed how to avoid bidding against each other in a public land auction in Michigan two years ago and in at least nine prospective deals with private land owners.

The Justice Department is "moving criminally," said Darren Bush, a former antitrust attorney for the Department of Justice and a professor of antitrust law at the University of Houston. "They are working their way through the grand jury process to potentially serve up indictments."

Chesapeake's disclosure indicates the Justice Department has moved swiftly on the matter. Reuters published its story on June 25. Just four days later, on June 29, the subpoena was served on Chesapeake, according to the company's quarterly report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Reuters report showed Chesapeake and Encana executives, including Chesapeake Chief Executive Aubrey McClendon, exchanged emails about dividing up the nine Michigan counties and landowners in an effort to prevent "acreage prices from continuing to push up," and establishing "bidding responsibilities" ahead of an October 2010 Michigan state land auction.

A spokesman for Encana was not immediately available to comment. A spokesman for Chesapeake declined comment, but the filing said the company is cooperating with the investigations. Chesapeake also said its board of directors is conducting an internal review of the matter.

Price-fixing, bid-rigging and market allocations by competitors are illegal in the United States under the Sherman Antitrust Act, and companies can be fined up to $100 million for each offense.

Chesapeake acknowledged in June that it held talks with Encana but said the two companies never consummated any agreement and never bid jointly. Encana said it held talks with Chesapeake without reaching an agreement on a joint venture. The Canadian company has begun an internal inquiry led by the chairman of its board of directors.

Chesapeake said in the filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it has also received demands for documents and information from state governmental agencies in connection with other probes relating to oil and gas rights transactions.

A spokeswoman for the Michigan Attorney General's office, which has also opened an investigation into possible collusion between Chesapeake and Encana, declined to comment. A Justice Department spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Chesapeake has been operating under a cloud of legal and governance issues following Reuters investigations showing potential conflicts of interest on the part of McClendon as well as the collusion allegations.

Shares of Chesapeake fell 2.5 percent to $19.80 from a New York Stock Exchange close of $20.31 in post market trading.

(Reporting By Michael Erman and Joshua Schneyer in New York, Scott Haggett in Calgary and Anna Driver in Houston; Editing by David Gregorio and Carol Bishopric)

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