In 2005, a special commission on agriculture in Lancaster County concluded that educating Plain Sect farmers about environmental and other issues should be a priority. Last August, the former Lancaster County Board of Commissioners responded by allocating $50,000 to hire someone to oversee such......

If you pay a sewage bill, Pennsylvania's new budget may spell relief from big rates hikes that have been anticipated. Many customers served by 17 regional sewage plants in Lancaster County have been told to expect steep increases in their bills because of state and federal clean-water manda......

Mention the words "farm bill," and many people probably think of wealthy farmers receiving billions of dollars in taxpayer money for crop subsidies.But the $300 billion Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008, as it is officially known, includes many provisions besides direct p......

Around Lancaster County, at least seven old dams have been removed on the Conestoga River and tributaries to aid their swim to a population boom. In Columbia, officials envision a new riverfront park attracting anglers fishing for them. Pennsylvania is hoping their restoration will spawn a......

The roller-coaster saga over whether a Lebanon County township can build a sewage treatment plant and discharge wastewater into trout streams flowing through northern Lancaster County has taken yet another dramatic plot twist. After facing strong opposition 20 years ago, Heidelberg Township was......

"Well, it starts with rain," says Mara Moran, 12, a Girl Scout with Troop 1706 in Cheverly, Md. "My teacher says that the water we drink is the same water the cavemen drank." "Yeah, people think you can make water, but you can't," says Deirdre Harder, 9, as she helps Mara push a big plastic bar......

A bill authored by a Lancaster County senator aimed at cleaning soap detergents that pollute waterways became law Tuesday, making Pennsylvania the second state in the nation with this type of legislation.The bill — written by Republican state Sen. Mike Brubaker of Warwick Township &m......

Despite a pair of court challenges, the state says it's full steam ahead for its nutrient-trading program in which farmers are paid by developers and municipal sewage-plant owners for conservation measures. Pennsylvania's nutrient-trading program, the most ambitious in the nation, was u......

Instead of retrieving lost recess balls in the stream behind Fritz Elementary School on Tuesday, students picked up plastic bags, cardboard boxes and cans.Fritz students in fourth and sixth grades cleaned up a section of the East Lampeter Township stream as the first step in creating an ou......

Berkley Crain and Danielle Lukens and their classmates at Lancaster Country Day School are creating micro forests that will help cleanse the waters of the Chesapeake Bay. That's a good news story for Earth Day number 38, Tuesday, April 22. The sobering sidebar: It's going to take t......

Landisville Middle School seventh-grader Sarah Thompson won the junior division reserve championship Tuesday night at the Lancaster County Science & Engineering Fair.Thompson's winning life science project was titled "What Is the Effect of Water Temperature on the Feeding Rate......

Using porous asphalt for Columbia's new Riverfront Park, improving a rare wild trout stream in southern Lancaster County and repairing local streams by removing old sediment from colonial mill days are projects included in nearly $1.4 million in state grants. The four local projects are amo......

Mount Joy Borough appears to have embraced the idea of traditional neighborhood developments, unlike nearby East Hempfield Township, which killed a TND ordinance in January.The borough will hold a conditional-use hearing March 26 for a TND proposed by Land Use Resources. If conditional use......

Helping clean up the Chesapeake Bay can seem like an abstract and onerous requirement for Lancaster County. But state Sen. Mike Brubaker says the county has played a role in polluting the bay and must do its part to restore its health. And back in 2000, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virgin......

At least two municipal groups from Lancaster County are among the dozens that have sued the state government over the cost to upgrade wastewater plants as part of a strategy to clean up the Chesapeake Bay.The lawsuit, filed in Commonwealth Court Friday by Capital Region Council of Governme......

A New York-based firm intends to spend $3 million to $5 million to install an innovative manure-treatment system on a local dairy farm as part of the Chesapeake Bay cleanup effort. Bion Environmental Technologies said today it plans to build the system at the Ron Kreider farm in Manheim to remo......

Lawmakers in Harrisburg will try to figure out this week how to keep municipalities from being bankrupted by the cost of cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay.Under a federal mandate, municipalities in the bay's watershed, which includes the Susquehanna River and its tributaries, have just tw......

Your sewer bill is likely going up. And state officials are feeling the heat for requiring upgrades to sewage treatment plants to help the Chesapeake Bay — without offering state financial help to offset the costs. Finger-pointing and legislative probes are in full force. Among the n......

The privilege of having Susquehanna riverfront or island property on popular Lake Clarke is about to come with a higher price. To prevent sewage pollution of the river and Chesapeake Bay, Safe Harbor Water Power Corp. is requiring all 72 renters on five islands in Lancaster County below Columbi......

The work of two Franklin & Marshall College scientists who have rocked the Chesapeake Bay cleanup world will be the cover story in Science magazine on Friday. The world's leading journal of scientific research chronicles the startling discovery of Dorothy Merritts and Robert Walter in 2......

Pennsylvania's environmental secretary today called a planned $275 million expansion of PPL's Holtwood Dam "a milestone in Pennsylvania's pursuit of clean energy production." "Clean energy is an imperative for our environment, our economy and our security," Kathleen McGinty said in prepared rem......

If it seems like we're getting an awful lot of record-making rainstorms and flooding in your lifetime, it may not be your imagination. Because of global warming, the county and Pennsylvania really are getting more extreme summer downpours than 60 years ago, according to a new report by P......

When Caroline Novak started consulting for the Lancaster Farmland Trust in 2004, she made some bold statements. The nonprofit farmland preservation group and the county's Agricultural Preserve Board could double the number of acres they save from development each year, she predicted. M......

Local farmers can soon "REAP" the benefits of new Pennsylvania legislation aimed at cleaning up the environment through economic incentives.More than 100 farmers and business owners turned out Tuesday morning at the Lancaster Farm and Home Center for a forum to discuss the new Resource Enh......

Like it or not, Lancaster County residents will be digging deeper into their pocketbooks to clean up the Chesapeake Bay, a body of water that doesn't even touch Pennsylvania. Some local municipalities are looking at rate hikes up to 40 percent to cover sewage-treatment upgrades over the nex......

Every time you start your automatic dishwasher, you're probably piping a substance destructive to fish and plant life into the Conestoga and Susquehanna rivers and, eventually, the Chesapeake Bay. That substance? Phosphorus. It is mixed into almost all popular brands of dish de......

Tim Wanner may never look at the Ephrata Fair in the same way.Wanner was among the Ephrata High School students in Josh Shortuse's environmental science class who attended the borough's annual festival of food, agriculture and games Wednesday.While enjoying the goodies &mdas......

Corn prices driven higher by the demand for ethanol from plants like one proposed in Conoy Township could be a boon for farmers. But environmentalists worry that growing more corn in the region could be a bust for the Chesapeake Bay. In a new report this week, the Chesapeake Bay Commiss......

(Editor's note: This is the last in a series of stories by New Era Correspondent Wendy S. Caldwell. She recently completed a co-op in applied anthropology at Millersville University aimed at understanding sustainable agriculture in Lancaster County.Lancaster County has long be......

Lancaster County's Plain Sect farmers tend to steer clear of the government and keep to their Old Order ways.More and more these days, however, the government is creating regulations aimed at the farming industry that affect Plain Sect and non-Plain Sect farmers alike.Many of th......

Fran Rodriguez sees plenty of Lancaster city children playing baseball and other organized sports.What she doesn't see is a lot of those kids hiking or fishing or canoeing."Our kids are very athletically minded," said Rodriguez, 44, who is state Rep. Mike Sturla's ......

The greening of Lancaster County may soon extend to its rooftops.The county is partnering with several public and private property owners to secure state funds for a "green roof" program that aims to cover conventional roofs with plants."Green roofs are one of the way......

Several factors contribute to 'dry spell'•••The recovery of the American shad run on the Susquehanna River has taken a huge step backwards this year.And it's not going to get better for a few years at best and for several years at wor......

Further proof that Lancaster County's long-standing excess-manure problem is being transformed into an asset surfaced today with the announcement of a two-year pilot project to compost up to 80,000 tons of the waste and adapt it for desirable uses. The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation,......

Lancaster County has more than 600 miles of dirty water running through the countryside before pouring into the Susquehanna River and Chesapeake Bay.The region, conservation officials said Thursday, would benefit from cleaner water.That's where REAP comes into play."......

Not so long ago, farmers Bill and Nanette Furina considered shutting down their Egg Basket farm in Mount Joy."We said, 'If we're going to stay here, we're going to have to find some way to generate our own electricity,'" Mr. Furina said.Thursday, the Furina......

Something quite unexpected is happening to manure, long one of Lancaster County's most challenging environmental issues. Suddenly, the excess waste of cows, pigs, poultry and other livestock is being viewed not just as a prime polluter of local waterways and the Chesapeake Bay, but as an asset,......

A Maryland energy company has announced an ambitious plan to build multiple Lancaster County manure-to-energy plants within one year.EnergyWorks, of Annapolis, Md., said Wednesday it will invest about $8 million to construct and operate three plants that will produce a bio-gas that can be ......