A recent PennEnvironment report found that Pennsylvania school districts are failing to keep lead out of school drinking water. Grid spoke with the executive director of PennEnvironment, David Masur, to learn more. Why should people be concerned about lead in school drinking water? Lead is unsafe at any level, especially for kids. There’s no “safe”
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Grid teamed up with the Chestnut Hill Local and Delaware Currents for our December feature about problems with the Philadelphia Water Department’s Green City, Clean Waters initiative. Carla Robinson, editor of the Chestnut Hill Local, wrote this note about the collaboration, and we’d like to share it with Grid readers. About a year and a
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Ahead of the April primary, Grid asked the mayoral candidates for their thoughts on the city’s major sustainability issues. We sent questions about municipal waste, sustainable development, parks and greenspaces, and bicycling infrastructure. Eight candidates responded by our deadline and we published their responses in a special voter’s guide issue. Now, two candidates remain: Republican
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Cherelle Parker served as the 9th district City Councilmember from 2016 until 2022, when she resigned to run for mayor. For 10 years before her term in City Council she served as a state representative. On Parks Funding My campaign has been focused on a vision for making Philadelphia the safest, cleanest, and greenest big
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David Oh served as at-large City Councilmember (Republican) from 2012 to 2023, when he resigned to run for mayor. Oh worked as an attorney before running for City Council and served in the Army National Guard from 1988 to 1992. On Parks Funding The fact that Philadelphia is spending less proportionally of its own budget,
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In 2021, Ken Conly, director at large for the Philadelphia Canoe Club, was paddling a stretch of the Schuylkill River near the Flat Rock Dam north of Manayunk when he noticed something afoot. A resident of nearby Andorra, Conly says that section of the river has traditionally been “neglected,” with trash accumulating along the river
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Regina Asmutis-Silvia cannot forget the gaze of a humpback whale stranded on a beach in Chatham, Massachusetts. With fellow members of an International Wildlife Coalition team, she worked to dig under the whale to relieve the pressure of its body-weight on vital organs. They hoped the high tide would carry the whale back to sea,
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Chris Deatrick’s girlfriend called him early in the morning on Thursday, September 2, 2021, pleading with him to leave his apartment at the Apex on Venice Island in Manayunk. Deatrick didn’t think about safety issues when he first moved to the Apex, because on most days the Schuylkill River is slow, muddy and meandering, and
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Jim Loudon’s face lights up as he recalls reaching his one-million-meter ergometer (commonly known as a rowing machine) goal earlier this year. Many rowers can achieve that in two months, he says. It took Loudon two years — but he did it as a below-the-left-elbow amputee. An eight-time indoor rowing world record holder, Loudon trains
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Most of the big brother–little brother act between New York City and Philadelphia is all in good fun. Eagles versus Giants, Mets versus Phillies, international metropolis versus city of neighborhoods — regardless of who wins, the sun still rises the next day. But start scratching around about the fact that these two cities share the
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On a Sunday afternoon in early June, Jorge Oliveras and Jackie Colon packed up their beach chairs, filled a cooler with snacks and brought their children out to Devil’s Pool. They sat amid a loose constellation of rocks at the confluence of Wissahickon and Cresheim creeks, watching their kids swim and splash around, basking in
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