Three Virginia sites are among ten in the South that the Southern Environmental Law Center regards as most endangered.

The list released Monday is the first by the SELC, but deputy director Jeff Gleason says the center plans to take an annual accounting of places it deems at risk.

Included are the Clinch and Powell rivers in southwest Virginia, which the SELC says could be harmed by mountaintop mining to supply coal to the Dominion power plant under construction in Wise County. Also on the list are possible widening of Interstate 81 and exploration of oil and gas drilling off Virginia's coast.

Gleason says the South is a testing ground for the nation's most pressing environmental issues, including global warming, energy and land conservation.