For more than 70 years, the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission (ORSANCO) has worked with Pennsylvania and seven other states to improve water quality in the Ohio River Basin. In addition to its extensive monitoring and data collection efforts, ORSANCO offers programs to help people connect with their local waterways and become better stewards. Lily Jones talks with outreach specialist Nick Callahan about ORSANCO’s annual River Sweep cleanup and floating environmental education classroom.

Low-producing "marginal" wells contribute less than a tenth of the oil and gas produced in the U.S. So why are they responsible for HALF of the industry's methane emissions? A new study from Environmental Defense Fund provides the first nationwide analysis of low-producing wells and their staggeringly disproportionate climate impact.

It's easy to get demoralized in the face of climate change, especially when it feels like there's nothing we, as individuals, can do about it. An initiative from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History (CMNH) in Pittsburgh is trying to change the dynamic by reframing the crisis in terms of local impacts and helping western Pennsylvanians meet it on their own terms. PEC's Lily Jones spoke with Dr. Bonnie McGill of CMNH's Climate and Rural Systems Partnership.

An exit interview with program manager Marla Meyer Papernick as she departs from PEC and DCNR’s Laurel Highlands Conservation Landscape, where Marla has served as external lead since 2015. We look back on what the effort has accomplished since then, and what the Landscape’s new strategic plan says about its future.

Almost everything made of plastic starts out as "nurdles": lentil-sized bits that sometimes get loose and end up in rivers and streams, where aquatic creatures easily mistake them for food. On the heels of a train derailment that spilled carloads of plastic pellets and crude oil into the Allegheny River in May, western PA watershed groups are working with university researchers and citizen scientists to measure the presence of nurdles in the region's waterways.

In celebration of National Trails Day on June 4, a repeat of our 2020 conversation with planning architect and trails historian Chuck Flink about his book, The Greenway Imperative.

This Memorial Day weekend marks the unofficial start of boating season in Pennsylvania, as well as National Safe Boating Week. Laurel Anders of the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission joins us to explain how motorized and non-motorized boaters can stay safe on the water this summer. We also discuss newly available funding opportunities for water trail access projects in the Commonwealth.

Outcome-based financing is an innovative way to leverage markets to fund socially-impactful projects that might otherwise be difficult to finance using conventional models. Amie Fleming of Quantified Ventures, a D.C.-based capital firm specializing in the application of outcome-based financing to environmental, public health, and community-development initiatives, joins us to explain how it works.

We celebrate Earth Day in conversation with Pennsylvania-born Rosalie Haizlett, a nature illustrator who's had work commissioned by the Smithsonian and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. She tells PEC's Lily Jones why she believes the arts can be a gateway to stewardship.

The Wild and Scenic Film Festival On Tour returns to Pennsylvania this month with in-person and virtual screenings hosted by PEC and POWR. One of the featured films, "A River Reborn", is a new documentary about how the Little Conemaugh River in Cambria County is rebounding from decades of pollution. We discuss the film with its director, Ben Kalina, of Mangrove Media.