Scott Weidensaul is a naturalist and writer, the author of about 30 books, including one out in March of this year, “A World on the Wing: The Global Odyssey of Migratory Birds.” In the book, Weidensaul takes readers across the word to see the incredible feats of migrating birds. We learn that some birds travel thousands of miles at a time and many of them make those treks in the darkness of night. Weidensaul also writes about the added challenges birds are facing from loss of habitat and climate change. A native of Pennsylvania, Weidensaul got his start writing about birds and nature in a colu ..read more

Pennsylvania collected about $146 million from natural gas drillers last year in impact fees — the lowest amount paid since the fee started. The Public Utility Commission reports 2020 impact fee collections dropped $54 million compared to 2019, mainly because of low gas prices amid the coronavirus pandemic. County and municipal governments where drilling happens will get the largest share of the fees at more than $71 million. The PUC said $51 million will go to the Marcellus Legacy Fund, which provides financial support for environmental, highway, water and sewer projects, rehabilitation of gr ..read more

It can be hard to grasp that as many as 1.5 million cicadas can turn up on one acre of land. That is, until you hear them. “They get so loud, you can hear them over the sound of the mower,” said Bret Satzler, referring to the sound coming from the periodical cicadas filling the trees in his yard, the wooded area behind it and just about everywhere you can think of. Juniata County is one of the places Brood X cicadas emerged this year, after spending 17 years under ground feeding on tree roots. I got to experience the cicada symphony when Satzler, one of my husband's uncles, gave me a tour of h ..read more

The Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources is hoping to bring down a boom in the gypsy moth population, spraying for the invasive species of caterpillar in 19 counties in south central, central, north central and northwest Pennsylvania. Gypsy moths like to eat the leaves off oaks, along with apples and aspens. They’ll also feed on many other trees like hemlocks and pines. “Caterpillars are getting to the full size now where they do most of their feeding," said Donald Eggen, the department’s forest health manager and chief of the division of forest health. "Well, it's rig ..read more

The need to cut greenhouse gas emissions that are driving climate change is well known, but scientists at Penn State say actually removing heat-trapping gases from the air has to be a part of the strategy too. Tom Richard, director of Penn State’s Institutes of Energy and the Environment and an organizer of its recent “Energy Days 2021” conference, said reducing emissions is important, but not enough. “At some point we actually have to turn the dial in the other direction and pull CO2 out of the atmosphere,” Richard said, adding that there are ways to do that, starting with plants. “Our agricu ..read more

As many as 1.5 million cicadas per acre is what parts of southcentral and eastern Pennsylvania and other states could be experiencing soon. WPSU’s Anne Danahy spoke with Tom Ford, a horticulture educator with Penn State Extension in Cambria County, about the Brood X cicadas, and what you should expect to see — and hear ..read more

President Biden's climate plans have been called the most ambitious in history. What do you want to know about the infrastructure plans and the country’s transition to a low-carbon economy? StateImpact Pennsylvania and The Allegheny Front are assembling a group of experts to answer your questions about the energy transition on topics like clean energy, climate change, labor economics, what to do about fossil fuel workers, electrifying the vehicle fleet, decarbonizing the electric grid, and more. You can submit a question in the form below. The experts will include: Akshaya Jha , Assistant Prof ..read more

David Pribulka, manager of Ferguson Township in Centre County, stood on a suburban street in late February, as snow melted and ran down a drain. The township recently adopted a stormwater fee, and he was pointing to one of the projects the fee will help pay for: a badly needed improvement to a drainage way. "A lot of these storm pipes are undersized. So they become overwhelemed with stormwater particularly after significant rain events and flooding," Pribulka said. “It’s starting to erode the channel throughout. Much of the channel is immediately adjacent to residential properties, and people ..read more

About five years ago, doctors found high levels of lead in the blood of Manuel Ortiz’s oldest son. Ortiz and his wife were surprised. They say Manuel Jr. acted like a normal kid. Health inspectors told them the culprit was lead-based paint in their rented apartment. Ortiz says the landlord didn’t do anything to fix it, so the family moved out as soon as they could. What Ortiz didn’t know, was that he moved into a house with a lead service line, which could mean he and his son were drinking water with lead in it. And now, the water department wants to do work on his street that could make the l ..read more

This story began with a simple task: Let’s make a pipeline map! Everyone wants to know where all the new Marcellus Shale gas pipelines are or will be. The new proposals have been piling up. Many have poetic names like Atlantic Sunrise, Mariner East, and Bluestone. There got to to be so many they started to get numbers: Mariner East I, Mariner East II. Here at StateImpact Pennsylvania, try as we might, we couldn’t keep track of them all in our heads. We also wanted to map all the smaller lines, and the lines that may have been there for decades, which everyone tends to forget about. The Wolf Ad ..read more