In November 2019 the City of Philadelphia approved SEPTA’s request to operate a natural gas–burning power plant in the Nicetown neighborhood of North Philadelphia. This approval marked a defeat for the neighbors opposing the plant, who are now preparing for the next phase in the struggle: taking oversight of the new plant’s emissions into their
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After nearly 40 years of organizing nature walks, park cleanups, tree plantings and trail maintenance, the volunteer group Friends of Pennypack Park disbanded in March 2020. Its dissolution came about after being named alongside the city as a defendant in a personal injury suit, in 2019, filed by the family of a girl injured inside
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Sometimes referred to as the “voice of the Delaware River,” Maya van Rossum has served as the Delaware Riverkeeper since 1994. To her, protecting the watershed has always been deeply personal. She grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs and returned to the area after law school to protect the Delaware and its tributaries. Van Rossum
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Two beavers sat in the shallows of the Delaware River eating breakfast as I met Jim Fries, project manager at Riverfront North Partnership, for a tour of the living shoreline at Lardner’s Point Park in Northeast Philadelphia. True to their reputation, the large rodents busily stripped the bark off branches they had clipped from willows
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At the start of December, Philadelphia City Council passed a bill to restrict the use of pesticides on public land. Titled “Healthy Outdoor Public Spaces,” the legislation was originally introduced by Councilwoman Cindy Bass to include an all-out ban on synthetic herbicides. This was later walked back to be a restriction in response to criticism,
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On October 12, Indigenous People’s Day, radio station WURD (96.1 FM/900 AM) held an on-air Environmental Justice Summit in partnership with Bartram’s Garden and From the Source Reporting Collaborative. Part of the station’s EcoWURD initiative, the day-long summit included speakers and panels discussing high-level topics such as leadership in environmental justice as well as grassroots
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Some classrooms keep guinea pigs or guppies as pets, but last year at Cook Wissahickon School in Roxborough, sixth-graders tended young freshwater mussels. “The students feed them and then, when they reach a larger stage, the Fairmount Water Works will place them in a creek,” says Jose L. Ramos, a middle-years reading and English language
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With birds singing in the background, three fellows at the Alliance for Watershed Education (AWE) walk through Camden’s Cramer Hill Nature Preserve. They point out a frog in a puddle, examine bones and feathers of a wild turkey, and point out invasive plants, among other conservation challenges. They wrap up with a request for visitors
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In late October, the Public Health and Human Services Committee of Philadelphia’s City Council sent a bill that would regulate the use of pesticides on public land to the full council for a vote Thurs. Dec. 03. The bill, titled “Healthy Outdoor Public Spaces,” was introduced by Committee Chair Councilwoman Cindy Bass. The bill only targeted
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Ten adults dressed in layers, hats and face masks gathered on a chilly September morning to go birding in Tacony Creek Park. They kept a couple yards apart from each other while peering through binoculars at local birds such as robins, kingfishers and cardinals along with some recently arrived winter visitors like a red-breasted nuthatch
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