pennsylvania
Abandoned Oil and Gas Wells Emit Carcinogens and Other Harmful Pollutants, Groundbreaking Study Shows
On a cloudy late-winter morning in 2004, Charles and Dorothy Harper were babysitting their 17-month-old grandson, Baelee, when the furnace in their rural Western Pennsylvania home revved up. The newly retired pastor and his wife did not realize that flammable gas had infiltrated the basement of the house, which they had recently built. Around 9 […]
Read MoreNot Winging It: Birders Hope Hard Data Will Help Save the Species They Love—and the Ecosystems Birds Depend On
The magnolia warbler travels as many as 2,000 miles, high above the Gulf of Mexico and across the entirety of the United States, before arriving in the cool climate of Canada’s boreal forest to breed. On a morning in May, one of the tiny yellow songbirds found itself entangled in a black net strung up […]
Read MoreShell Agrees to Pay $10 Million After Permit Violations at its Giant New Plastics Plant in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro on Wednesday announced that he had reached an agreement with Shell to pay $10 million in penalties because the company’s new plastic manufacturing plant in Beaver County near Pittsburgh put more pollution in the air in its first months of operation than its state permits allow. The plant has the capacity […]
Read MoreAs EPA Proposes Tougher Rules on Emissions, Report Names Pennsylvania as One of America’s Top Polluters
PHILADELPHIA—Pennsylvania’s role as the birthplace of American democracy is a staple of elementary school history lessons. Fewer are aware of another distinction held by the Keystone State—that as one of the cradles of American energy production. The nation’s first oil well was drilled in 1859 in Titusville, about 100 miles north of Pittsburgh. Eight years […]
Read MoreOhio Environmentalists, Oil Companies Battle State Over Dumping of Fracking Wastewater
Ten years ago, Tim Kettler asked local officials to stop spreading liquid waste from fracking on the road near his home in Warsaw, Ohio, because he was worried that the fluid would contaminate a pond where he gets his drinking water. They complied with his request, but the practice continues in many other places across […]
Read MoreNew Study Bolsters Case for Pennsylvania to Join Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative
Pennsylvania could speed its pace cutting carbon emissions, raise new revenue and boost the state’s use of renewable fuels by completing its planned enrollment in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, an agreement by 12 states to curb emissions from power plants, according to a new analysis. The study, published this week by energy specialists at […]
Read MoreShell Sued Over Air Emissions at Pennsylvania’s New Petrochemical Plant
Two environmental groups sued Shell on Thursday, claiming that air emissions from its massive new petrochemical plant about 30 miles north of Pittsburgh repeatedly violated federal and state air-quality laws and far exceeded limits set in its operating permit. The plant officially opened in November 2022 after months of testing. The Environmental Integrity Group and […]
Read More‘Green Steel’ Would Curb Carbon Emissions, Spur Economic Revival in Southwest Pennsylvania, Study Says
Pennsylvania’s steel industry has the potential to lead a national transition to reduce or even eliminate carbon emissions if it switched to making so-called green steel, according to a report issued Monday by the Ohio River Valley Institute, a nonprofit research group. Southwest Pennsylvania, where the industry is concentrated, has the water and wind resources, […]
Read MoreAwash in Toxic Wastewater From Fracking for Natural Gas, Pennsylvania Faces a Disposal Reckoning
Gillian Graber considers herself an “accidental activist,” a stay-at-home mom who learned in 2014 that a gas company wanted to drill wells 2,400 feet from her house on the eastern outskirts of Pittsburgh and had a vague notion that fracking that close would be dangerous for her two young children. She started reading everything she […]
Read MorePlastic Recycling Plant Could Send Toxic ‘Forever Chemicals’ Into the Susquehanna River, Polluting a Vital Drinking Water Source
Warnings that a large-scale plastics recycling plant planned along a floodplain in Central Pennsylvania could flush toxic PFAS into the Susquehanna River, a major source of drinking water for millions, are stirring a budding opposition movement. The Houston-based startup company Encina, which proposes to build the $1.1 billion advanced recycling plant in Northumberland County, says […]
Read More