Pennsylvania Legacies

Penn State Extension's Master Watershed Stewards program celebrated its tenth anniversary last year. PEC's Derek Maiolo, a member of the most recent cohort to complete MWS training, shares his experience in the program.

A Susquehanna University professor is pioneering a new way to restore watersheds in Pennsylvania using old tricks from beavers. What can we learn from nature's engineers?

Last month, PEC announced the recipients of the first round of Protect Your Drinking Water grants, funded by Aqua Pennsylvania. On this episode we'll learn about grantees' plans for projects to improve upstream water quality in the Chester, Ridley, and Crum Creek watersheds near Philadelphia.

PEC staff are on retreat this week, so we're revisiting our June 2021 conversation with Amy Camp, author of "Deciding On Trails: 7 Practices of Healthy Trail Towns." Through her consultancy, Cycle Forward, Amy has successfully applied the Trail Town model she helped develop to communities like Kane, PA, winner of PEC's 2024 Trailblazing Community award.

Gravel riding is the fastest-growing segment of cycling -- and with hundreds of miles of unpaved mountain roads and plenty to see and do along the way, northeast Pennsylvania is poised to become the next big gravel scene. We look at PEC's recent report on opportunities to grow the sport in NEPA, and meet some of the people working to build a regional culture around gravel.

PEC staff joined partners and neighbors at 2024 Celebrate Trails Day events across the state last weekend. On this episode, we share trailside conversations and sounds from the Three Rivers Heritage Trail and Duck Hollow Trail in Pittsburgh; the Sheepskin Trail in Uniontown; and the Mon River Trail in Morgantown, WV.

As a clean energy technology, hydrogen holds both promise and peril -- especially in terms of local impacts and public attitudes. With DoE-funded regional hydrogen hubs coming to Pennsylvania, how can we ensure community voices are heard and their needs are met? Researchers from the Energy Futures Initiative recently took the public's temperature and found people across the country broadly willing...

As Pennsylvania goes after hundreds of millions of Climate Pollution Reduction Grant dollars, a conversation with the architect of RISE-PA, the Department of Environmental Protection's plan to decarbonize heavy industry and other major sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the Commonwealth. Our guest, DEP's Louie Krak, is part of a special team within the Shapiro Administration tasked with making...

Climate change threatens the survival of two thirds of all North American bird species. But the massive buildout of power transmission infrastructure needed to support a zero-carbon energy system also poses a threat to birds -- especially in Pennsylvania, which exports more electricity than any other state. How can we scale up the grid while minimizing impacts on our feathered friends? A new repor...

On this episode we get to know PEC's new president, Tom Gilbert, who started in January. A native Pennsylvanian, Tom has led successful campaigns for open space preservation and clean energy policy in New Jersey, where he served as co-Executive Director of the New Jersey Conservation Foundation.

Oil and gas producing states have two years to bring their regulations up to newly finalized EPA standards, including stricter inspection and repair requirements, to stop leaks and intentional release of climate-changing methane. Environmental Defense Fund's John Rutecki explains what the new rule will mean for Pennsylvania, the nation's second-largest producer of natural gas.

Two of the seven proposals selected for federal funding to develop clean hydrogen "hubs" have a footprint in Pennsylvania. The state has several key components of hydrogen production already in place, including huge quantities of natural gas that can be processed into hydrogen needed to decarbonize key industries. But harvesting hydrogen from methane without releasing even more greenhouse gases is...

New legislation in Harrisburg would require the use of responsible outdoor lighting at state government facilities, something cities in Pennsylvania and across the country are already pursuing. A panel of Dark Sky advocates explains why limiting light pollution is needed to protect migratory birds, as well as its implications for human health, environmental justice, scientific research, and outdoo...

The Environmental Protection Agency's National Environmental Youth Advisory Council (NEYAC), launched in November of 2023, is EPA's first advisory committee comprised exclusively of teens and young adults. The idea came, in part, from a Pennsylvania high schooler. We talk with Grace Ziegmont of York County, who helped to pitch the idea last year at the White House.

Throughout Pennsylvania's history, there's a throughline of progress on the environment and conservation that begins with the vision and hard work of dedicated people. In our final episode of 2023, outgoing president Davitt Woodwell reflects on his 30+ years at PEC with thoughts on working with partners, taking risks, and staying positive in the face of climate change.

The Three Rivers Heritage Trail in Allegheny County extends more than 33 miles on both banks of the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio Rivers. The robust trail network has been decades in the making and would not have been possible without an equally robust network of people committed to trail work — including, perhaps most of all, Allegheny County's "trail czar," Darla Cravotta.

The PA Statewide Watershed Conference, held Oct. 29-30 in Altoona, convened experts and community volunteers alike to discuss water-related issues and solutions. This year's event featured artists who use creativity as a communication tool, inspiring people to get involved with their own watersheds. Just in time for the event, the Pennsylvania Organization for Watersheds and Rivers (POWR) released...

As we await key court decisions on Pennsylvania's participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a refresher on what RGGI is, how it works, and why it would be a game-changer for Pennsylvania. Our interview with Franz Litz, who helped launch the initiative almost 20 years ago, originally aired in 2019.

The idea for an 11-mile Greenway along the Delaware River in Philadelphia goes all the way back to 1995, with U.S. Rep. Bob Borski's vision for reconnecting northeast Philly neighborhoods with the riverfront. Kensington native Mariann "Mare" Dempsey was in on the plan from the beginning as an aide to Congressman Borski, and over the following decades she helped guide the Greenway through thickets...

It's our 200th podcast episode! We celebrate by recognizing another big milestone: issue #1000 of the PA Environment Digest published by former PA Department of Environmental Protection Secretary David Hess. Dave explains how the Digest grew from an internal newsletter during his days as a legislative staffer into one of the Commonwealth's longest-running and widest-reaching citizen journalism ini...

Pennsylvania native Tom Comitta set out to create a novel composed entirely of nature descriptions from more than 300 English-language books published over the last three centuries. The result is "The Nature Book," a novel without any humans and told instead through the eyes of animals as they traverse jungles, desert, and even outer space. What does such a book mean in a world dominated by humans...

Pennsylvania could be the future site of a direct air capture (DAC) hub, according to a report from the Great Plains Institute. What potential does the technology hold, and why are some areas better candidates than others?

Perkiomen Valley School District is the first K-12 Public School in Pennsylvania with an accredited arboretum, and the only K-12 School in the world with two accredited arboretums: Lenape Arboretum and Muhlenberg Woods. They have opened opportunities for students to learn and connect not just with the outdoors, but with the Lenape people who inhabited the area before European settlers displaced th...

Not only will Pennsylvania's participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) reduce carbon emissions -- it will also bring down energy costs, saving consumers $1.5 billion, and leverage hundreds of millions more in federal funding for clean energy. In the second part of our series exploring the latest economic research on RGGI, we consider the surprising cost of NOT participating in...

Governor Josh Shapiro says he wants to decarbonize power generation, but only if it can be done in a way that protects consumers and keeps Pennsylvanians employed in good jobs. Can the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) deliver on those priorities? A profusion of recently published economic research says 'yes.' In the first of a two-part series, the authors of a new study from Penn's Kleinm...