Three Philadelphia Water Department (PWD) trash skimming boats ply the waters of the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers, floating goalkeepers trying to prevent plastic debris from reaching the ocean. The current circulating around the North Atlantic leaves a quiet section of ocean in the middle called a gyre. A patch of plastic garbage hundreds of miles
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The Cobbs Creek Foundation’s creek restoration plans received a $3.5 million boost in state funds from the Redevelopment Assistance Capital Project (RACP) grant program in November. The RACP program funds “the acquisition and construction of regional economic, cultural, civic, recreational, and historical improvement projects,” according to its website. In a minor win for neighborhood advocates
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Students are organizing to oppose the Lower Merion School District’s plans to raze a wooded area — home to towering tulip poplars and red and white oaks — to build practice athletic fields for the nearby Black Rock Middle School. As Grid has reported, the school district acquired the land this year for about $13
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On December 6 the City Council Committee on Rules discussed a bill to exempt the Cobbs Creek golf course development from zoning restrictions preventing clearing trees on steep slopes and limiting the height of fences and buildings. Ordinarily developers seeking exemptions from such zoning requirements have to seek approval from the City’s Zoning Board of
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The Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education announced on December 7 that it has secured $3 million in funding from anonymous donors to preserve the Boy Scout Tract, the 24-acre parcel of land whose potential sale to developers over the summer caused a firestorm of community opposition. The center began exploring a sale after they received
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Members of the public will have two chances to weigh in on legislation proposed by council member Curtis Jones to exempt the Cobbs Creek golf course from restrictions on cutting trees on steep slopes, rules meant to protect water quality and prevent erosion. On December 6th at 10am, the City Council Rules Committee will meet.
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Homeowners whose properties back up to the Cobbs Creek golf courses could lose their decks or backyard sheds according to a letter sent from Philadelphia Parks & Recreation’s Kathryn Ott Lovell to Cobbs Creek Foundation founding CEO Christopher Lange. In the June 20, 2019 letter, obtained in response to a right-to-know request by Lawrence Szmulowicz,
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Pennsylvania’s One Health Task Force has issued recommendations intended to reduce the risks to public health and to wildlife health posed by house cats. As the recommendations notes, “Pennsylvania has the highest number of rabid domestic cats among all states, and domestic cats disproportionately expose more people to rabies than other sources.” House cats also
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On October 2 a large pile of tires was dumped below the Whitaker Avenue Bridge in Tacony Creek Park. One tire lodged in a forked trunk of a tree growing below the bridge. Two others had hooked a branch of another tree and remained suspended about 15 feet up in the air. A tire dropped
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On a frigid January morning I made a pilgrimage to the grave of Alexander Wilson, the so-called “Father of American Ornithology,” at the Gloria Dei Church cemetery at Christian Street and Columbus Boulevard in South Philadelphia. I didn’t know exactly where it was, but the old cemetery is small, and in about five minutes I
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