On May 2, two Lancaster city wastewater officials showed up for a surprise inspection of Armstrong Environmental Services, an East Lampeter Township company that specializes in treating industrial waste. The city had just found out that the company was treating waste from wells that drill......

Lancaster city has a grand 25-year plan to become green. But in the year since its green infrastructure plan was released, only two projects have been completed to soak up stormwater and prevent overflow sewage from being released into the Conestoga River, and, ultimately, the Chesapeake ......

Nine Lancaster County farmers will share nearly $2 million in state and federal grants for barnyard improvements to keep soil and manure from running into local streams and the Chesapeake Bay. Some $1,002,715 was awarded to the Lancaster County Conservation District to be split between th......

Lancaster County continues to be one of the nation's 40 most-polluted metropolitan areas in smog and soot, according to the American Lung Association. The ALA's 13th annual State of the Air report ranks the Lancaster Metropolitan Area as having the 29th-worst smog, the 39th-worst bad-air ......

Second-hand smoke can have serious health consequences, cigarette butts can litter the ground for years, and most importantly, adults smoking models unhealthy behavior for children. Those are among the reasons Lancaster City Council on Tuesday voted to ban tobacco use in the city's public......

Lancaster city's sewer bills are tied to the city's water bills. City property owners are billed for the amount of water they use, and those gallons are also reflected in the sewer charge. "You flush your toilet, you pay for it," Lancaster Mayor Rick Gray said he tells neighborhood groups......

A Lancaster waste-treatment company has been fined $35,000 for discharging industrial wastewater pollutants to Lancaster city's wastewater treatment plant. Armstrong Environmental Services, at 205 Greenfield Road, has agreed to pay the fine and take actions to minimize the likelihood of f......

Almost 200 years ago, goats roaming the streets were an issue in Marietta. Borough leaders passed an ordinance against them. It still is on the books. Now, borough leaders can sift through their thick code of rules and regulations and decide what changes are needed to guide the river town......

Jenni Ferris is fortunate. Her home on Lancaster city's East Walnut Street has off-street parking. Her neighbors have not been so lucky. Within the last few years they have had two vehicles struck on different occasions while parked along the busy street. But city plans for rebuil......

The state is proposing a cleanup of contaminated soil and groundwater at the Berkley Products Co. plant on the edge of Akron, five years after a federal Superfund cleanup was completed at a waste site owned by the same company in West Cocalico Township. The state Department of Environment......

Lancaster County's largest emitters of greenhouse gases include the county incinerator, two landfills, a natural gas pipeline compressor station and three industries. But all those sources combined are dwarfed by the 9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide that PPL's coal-fired Brunner Is......

Lancaster City Council members Monday took the first step toward approving sewer and water rate increases for city residents. The rate hikes — on average $16 per quarter for sewer and $7 for water — were contained in Mayor Rick Gray's 2012 budget proposal. The budget......

On the surface, Lancaster is looking forward to a stable 2012, according to the proposed budget presented to City Council by Mayor Rick Gray Tuesday night. The $46.2 million spending plan calls for no increase in real estate taxes for property owners and no layoffs for city workers. The g......

The federal government has backed off its plans to make counties and local municipalities reduce specific amounts of manure, fertilizers and sediment as part of the Chesapeake Bay cleanup. In a letter to state Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Michael Krancer, the federal E......

Christmas is coming early for Lancaster city. The city learned last week that it will receive $10.5 million from the state's Redevelopment Capital Assistance grant program. The funds, which must be evenly matched, will allow the city to: • Expand City......

Lancaster city and Manor Township face fines levied by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for stormwater runoff violations. City and Manor officials are negotiating with the federal agency to correct alleged violations of the Clean Water Act and reduce the fines. EPA initial......

Millersville University has engaged in a competition to reduce, reuse and recycle waste. The Game Day Challenge is a friendly competition for colleges and universities to promote waste reduction at their football games. The challenge was proposed by the Environmental Protection Ag......

The Columbia Water Company is receiving a $15.25 million loan from the state to upgrade and expand its water treatment plant. The low-interest loan from the Pennsylvania Infrastructure Investment Authority was the largest funding award of the 18 projects, announced Wednesday. Those projec......

U.S. Rep. Joe Pitts and a dozen other members of the state's congressional delegation are urging President Barack Obama to leave regulation of the booming natural-gas drilling industry to individual states. The lawmakers, in a letter to senior White House economic adviser Gene Sperling, s......

Nonprofit housing developer Community Basics Inc. announced Monday the opening of its newest housing community, Cloister Heights in Ephrata. The former site of the decaying, vacant Cloister Motor Court Motel was extensively renovated and converted into a two-story dwelling for people expe......

  Last month's torrential rains from Tropical Storm Lee caused the Susquehanna River to whisk away about 4 million tons of sediment and flush it into the Chesapeake Bay. That's about four years' worth of runaway soil, and it has touched off worries of suffocated underwater grass......

Despite continuing air-quality improvements, Lancaster was the 10th-smoggiest midsize metropolitan area in the United States during 2010, according to a report. Using data from government air-quality monitors, the Philadelphia-based group PennEnvironment also found the Lancaster area tied......

Lancaster City Council took preliminary steps Tuesday to issue $40 million in bonds, the proceeds of which will be used for needed upgrades to the city's sewer and water systems and other projects. Council members had the first reading of a bill authorizing the sale. A vote at their Sept.......

For the third time in two years, federal environmental officials have picked a Lancaster County watershed intensively farmed by Amish for farm-to-farm inspections. Any day now, officials from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's water protection enforcement branch will start driving......

There's a new star in the constellation of Lancaster County energy-efficiency leaders. The High companies' corporate office has earned Energy Star status from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, it was announced this week. The 1853 William Penn Way building, opened in 1988 a......

There's a new star in the constellation of Lancaster County energy-efficiency leaders. The High companies' corporate office has earned Energy Star status from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, it was announced this week. The 1853 William Penn Way building, opened in 1988 a......

The weather and the price of milk are worries for Jeff Balmer, a young dairyman raising a family on a modest farm in Warwick Township. He's concerned, too, that costly pollution-control edicts coming out of Washington could drive him off his 110 acres. But one thing Balmer has goi......

A new chemical treatment to keep lawns green and weed-free is having an unanticipated side effect on some evergreen trees. It's turning them brown. "We have seen varying degrees of damage to woody plants," Don Long, general manager of local lawn-care company Tomlinson Bomberger, s......

At a ceremony celebrating the reopening of the renovated Sixth Ward Park, Lancaster Mayor Rick Gray on Thursday recalled his grandmother saying, "The Lord works in mysterious ways." Gray was referring to a state Health Department regulation intended to prevent the spread of waterborne dis......

Under federal pressure to stop sewage overflows into the Conestoga River, and ultimately the Chesapeake Bay, Lancaster city officials have been formulating plans to keep stormwater from ever reaching the sewer system. Last week, state officials announced funding to put the first of those ......

Local dairy farmers no longer have to cry over spilled milk. On Tuesday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency formally exempted milk and milk containers from the Oil Spill Prevention, Control and Countermeasure rule, potentially saving the milk and dairy industries more than $140 mill......

Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania will not be denied, predicts the man responsible for natural gas leases in state forests and state parks. "The reason Pennsylvania is hot, hot, hot is because we potentially have the largest gas field on planet Earth in Pennsylvania, situated in the middle ......

New standards on the release of toxic chemicals harmful to health and the environment will have little impact on at least one of three Lancaster city industries affected. The federal Environmental Protection Agency set tougher emissions standards on boilers Monday under the Clean Air Act,......

Are Lancaster County's 95,700 dairy cows — when they burp, anyway — contributing to global warming? You snicker. You doubt the power of enteric fermentation? The truth is, what dairy cows and other ruminant domestic livestock produce from food digesting in their stomac......

Lancaster city's new strategic plan has a lofty goal: for government to "be green and sustainable." The city is taking initial steps toward that goal, some of which could be completed by the end of the year. It plans to use a $500,000 federal stimulus grant to install a geo-therma......

After a do-over, Pennsylvania's detailed plan for how it will vastly reduce the amount of smothering soil and nutrients it's flushing into the Chesapeake Bay has been accepted by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Farmers will be profoundly affected, of course, but so will almos......

There are 300 brownfields in Lancaster County, Harrisburg and Steelton. There also are tens of thousands of unemployed residents in those areas. So Harrisburg Area Community College has decided to play matchmaker, with the help of Uncle Sam. HACC wants to train 60 people t......

Will it be illegal for a cow to stand in a stream in Lancaster County? Or for a local farmer to spread manure in winter? That's what local ag consultant Peter Hughes foresees as the federal government cracks down on sources of nutrients flowing into the Chesapeake Bay. In ......

Three local agencies have reaped the rewards of Harrisburg's latest round of Growing Greener and federal EPA grants for environmental projects throughout Pennsylvania. Gov. Ed Rendell on Thursday announced 87 grant awards totaling $14.1 million to municipalities and organizations committe......

Up to 20 farms in the Muddy Run area of Lancaster County could be inspected by the EPA as the agency ramps up its efforts pertaining to the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load or TMDL. Don McNutt, administrator of the Lancaster County Conservation District, said "a couple" of farms have ......

It's their turn on the hot seat for 90-some small Amish farmers north of Intercourse. The federal Environmental Protection Agency Wednesday plans to begin going farm to farm to determine if the owners have installed state-required conservation plans to keep soil and manure out of local st......

The nation's first ethanol pipeline — a $3.5 billion, 1,800-mile project that could pass through seven Lancaster County townships — might be a step closer to reality. The federal government needs to guarantee a loan if the world's longest ethanol pipeline is going to be built,......

"Good night. Don't let the bedbugs bite." Joanne Moore used to think that old saw was funny. Not so much anymore. Not since Moore, 58, a retired Air Force major, awoke one night in September in her Lititz home to record a dream. She switched on the flashlight and w......

John Hines has had a month to calm down, and I think he's going to be OK. But in September when the federal Environmental Protection Agency called his work "seriously deficient," Hines was not a happy camper. A deputy secretary with Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Prote......

Cocalico School District students are taking Google far beyond its familiar search-engine identity. At it the school board's meeting Monday, Cocalico's technology staff and teachers explained how they use Google's less-familiar Google Applications as teaching tools. The school now......

For 27 years, Pennsylvania and five other border states have tried to reduce farm runoff, make sewage plants perform better and keep pollution-prone stormwater from running into the Chesapeake Bay. But the bay, an acknowledged national treasure, continued to decline. Now, buttress......

"No offense to anybody else, but I don't give a damn about the Chesapeake Bay," Lancaster County's watershed coordinator told about 100 people assembled Thursday for just that purpose. But there was a method to Matt Kofroth's shocking sentence — delivered to environmental regulators......

You don't tug on Superman's cape or pull the mask off the ol' Lone Ranger. And, if you're smart, you don't mess around with the Environmental Protection Agency. Just ask Barry Smith, manager for Manor Township. Smith was required to spend two days with five EPA inspectors ......

Brown marmorated stink bugs entered the United States about 12 years ago — around Allentown — but they weren't expected to become a nuisance. Wrong. A year ago, when the shield-shaped, erratically buzzing bugs began swarming Lancaster County homes, it was predicted the......

For 13 years, Warwick Township has had a communitywide commitment to improving its streams and managing its stormwater. That across-the-board diligence — showing the role of local government in restoring watersheds — has earned Warwick Township the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's ......

Lancaster city might have found a small answer — or many small answers — to a very large problem. Whenever the city experiences a heavy rain, stormwater runs into the sewer systems and overwhelms the capacity of its wastewater treatment plant, causing raw sewage to overflow in......

Two Manheim-area farmers were fined a total of $6,000 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for illegally discharging manure and milkhouse washwater into a tributary of Chickies Creek. EPA on April 1 inspected the poultry farm owned by Melvin Petersheim and his brother, Moses. Moses......

Pennsylvania says it will make required dramatic reductions in the amount of nutrients and soil washing into the Chesapeake Bay by putting caps on sewage plants, improving stormwater control in urban areas and pressing farmers to ramp up anti-pollution efforts. The "road map of changes" i......

Correction Aug. 23, 2010 — The story below incorrectly indicated that expired prescription drugs should be disposed of by flushing them. Instead, the Environmental Protection Agency and Lancaster County Solid Waste Management Authority sugge......

Maxima Technologies will pay a $35,000 civil penalty to settle allegations that it failed to report the use of lead at its Rohrerstown Road headquarters.The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in announcing the settlement Wednesday, had accused Maxima of violating federal reporting requi......

For years, local efforts to reduce pollution in the Chesapeake Bay have focused on nutrient runoff from farm fields and sediment from cows in streams.Now, Lancaster city and the nonprofit group LIVE Green are taking a more urban approach to the problem.On Thursday, the city received......

High Steel Structures and High Concrete Group have settled alleged violations of toxic chemical reporting requirements, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday.The alleged paperwork violations, which High brought to the attention of EPA inspectors, were at High Steel plants ......

"We need to get the farmers aware," Levi J. Fisher said of efforts to make his fellow Amish farmers in Bart Township more environmentally conscious. "There's too many of them wanting to shove everything aside."Fisher, an organic milk producer, has already shelled ou......

An environmental group that threatened to sue four Lancaster County farmers last November over alleged stream pollution is now hoping to convince 45 mostly Plain Sect farmers in Bart Township to check their farms for runoff.Two-page letters were sent to the owners of the Bart farms on Frid......

Invoking President Barack Obama's executive order to get serious about cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has ordered a Manheim-area farm to stop sending pollutants into a local stream.EPA said it inspected the farm owned by Melvin and Moses Peters......

Local farmers, communities with stormwater runoff problems and sewage plant owners got a clearer picture of their marching orders Wednesday from a federal government that has vowed to do what it takes to clean up the Chesapeake Bay.The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency revealed a 176-pa......

The federal government has told officials of 12 municipalities here, including Lancaster city, that they have to do a better job of keeping pollutants out of local streams and the Chesapeake Bay after storms.The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has sent compliance orders to the 12, req......

Lancaster city and 11 townships and boroughs in Lancaster County have received orders from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to do a better job of controlling stormwater runoff.The federal agency said the dozen municipalities have to come into compliance with their Clean Water Act p......

The air quality over Lancaster County continues to improve. But it's still nothing to write home about, according to the latest air pollution report card by the American Lung Association.The "State of the Air 2010" ranks counties and metropolitan areas nationwide based on air......

With every severe summer thunderstorm and every heavy winter snowmelt, Lancaster city's drainage system overflows and raw sewage spills into the Conestoga River.The city is under increasing pressure from the federal Environmental Protection Agency to do something about it.Lancas......

Protection could come with a price. New federal lead-paint regulations, aimed at preventing lead poisoning, could trigger costlier home repairs for thousands of county homeowners. The regulations, which took effect Thursday, cover contractors working in homes, child-care facilities and ......

It's easy to pretend that radon doesn't exist because we can't see it, taste it or smell it. To many homeowners, it's "something that other people have to worry about," and they think, "How bad can it really be?"Well, according to the Environmental Prote......

The Conewago Creek watershed — a sparsely populated but heavily farmed area at the junction of Lancaster, Dauphin and Lebanon counties — is being put in a big test tube.A unique grass-roots cleanup strategy being tried here, if successful, may become a model for how to clean st......

The amount of soil and nutrients flowing down the Susquehanna and Conestoga rivers is declining, according to a new report.That's music to the ears of officials with state and federal environmental agencies who, as part of a cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay, have recently vowed to reduce ......

The Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission's board of directors on Thursday voted to press state and federal environmental officials to step up efforts to fix the ailing Susquehanna River.Calling the river "increasingly impaired," the directors passed a resolution at their q......

When the federal Environmental Protection Agency announced last fall it had targeted nearly two dozen small farms near Intercourse for farm-related water pollution inspections, fears of a crackdown rippled through farm and regulatory circles all the way to Harrisburg.The 3-square-mile Wats......

More local farms may fall under big-farm pollution regulations.And local municipalities and developments may be required to do a better job of containing storm water and keeping it out of streams.Both measures are being sought by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which Monda......

Hundreds of communities far from congested highways and belching smokestacks soon may join America's big cities and industrial corridors in violation of stricter limits on lung-damaging smog proposed Thursday by the Obama administration.Cost of compliance could be in the tens of billio......

Heather Fenimore is convinced organic food is the best choice for her family. Fenimore, a Manheim Township social-services worker, first dabbled in organics more than 20 years ago, as a college student. Motherhood intensified her desire to protect the environment and her new family's he......

Consumers pay a premium for organic food. Organic romaine lettuce can cost about 60 cents more than conventional. A pound of organic grapes runs 50 cents to $1 more. And at around $4, a half-gallon of organic 2 percent milk costs more than twice as much as its conventional counterpart....

Organic food is a relatively new area of research, emerging only over the last decade or two, with little funding and often-conflicting results. A headline-making British study, published last summer in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, found no significant nutritional difference b......

The state's top environmental official said here Thursday that the state must make tough decisions that result in cleaner water flowing into the Chesapeake Bay or face unwanted dictates from the federal government or a judge.John Hanger, Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental P......

Warwick Township's administrative office building has earned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's coveted Energy Star label.The national symbol for superior energy efficiency and environmental protection was awarded to the township office building at 315 Clay Road, near Litit......

Lancaster County is a model that communities across the nation can use to see how smart growth can bring environmental sustainability, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.On Tuesday, EPA presented the Lancaster County Planning Commission its 2009 National Award for Smart ......

Two years ago, Congress ordered the nation's gasoline refiners to do something that is turning out to be mathematically impossible. To please the farm lobby and to help wean the nation off oil, Congress mandated that refiners blend a rising volume of ethanol and other biofuels into gasoline......

In 1950, 8 million people lived in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.Today, 17 million people live there, with 130,000 new residents moving in each year.According to Bob Koroncai of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, each and every one of those residents is responsible for nearly ......

Frustrated by inaction in Congress, a growing number of states are trying to reduce the rising tide of junked TVs, computers and other electronics that have become one of the nation's fastest-growing waste streams. Nineteen states have passed laws requiring the recycling of old electronics,......

The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday issued a news release announcing it had cited 14 municipalities in Pennsylvania and Maryland for stormwater violations.On that list were five Lancaster County municipalities — Akron and Terre Hill boroughs and East Earl, East Donegal an......

Federal officials, acting on President Barrack Obama's recent executive order to get serious about cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay, announced a draft strategy Monday that makes Lancaster County a linchpin in the plan.Local farms, sewage plants and runoff from urban and suburban landscap......

Almost a year ago, farmers here and nationwide were outraged over reports that the federal government was considering a "cow tax" aimed at reducing methane gas produced by their livestock.The plan to tax cows for burping or flatulence was fodder for late-night talk shows, but it ......

Despite national and state efforts to reduce air pollution, Lancaster County is one of 31 metropolitan areas in the United States to have unhealthy levels of soot, officials say.High levels of fine particulate matter, or soot, "can cause a number of serious health problems, including ......

Ninety-six times last year, during summer rains or snowmelts, raw sewage and industrial wastewater from in and around the city were piped directly into the Conestoga River without being treated. Some 943 million gallons of combined sewage and rainwater were discharged into the river and even......

Correction — The article below, posted on LancasterOnline Saturday, misstated U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standards for tritium. Agency rules allow no more than 20,000 picocuries per liter in drinking water....

The federal Environmental Protection Agency has reached an $80,000 settlement with Lancaster landlord Tony Papadimitriou for his failure to disclose known lead-paint hazards to tenants in his city-owned properties. Settlement terms dictate Papadimitriou must pay an $8,000 fine to the EPA and th......

Darren Parmer is passionate about his work. In response to a question about the impact lead paint can have on children, the city's certified lead-risk assessor leans forward in his chair and begins, "Now you got me going" before delivering a rapid-fire answer. His response......

A local landlord has settled with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over violations of federal law that requires disclosure of lead-based paint hazards to residential tenants.Tony J. Papadimitriou, who owns several residential properties in Lancaster, agreed to pay $8,000 for failin......

"Extensive" testing shows the air outside Locust Grove Mennonite School in East Lampeter Township is safe, the state Department of Environmental Protection says. Air testing had been ordered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in March after a study by the newspaper USA Today listed the......

Don't look now, but President Obama just nationalized the Chesapeake Bay.The president this week issued an executive order putting the federal government in charge of efforts to clean the bay. That overturns a 30-year system whereby the states around the bay, along with the federal Env......

......

Last week, according to a press release, the Environmental Protection Agency launched "Pick 5 for the Environment," encouraging the public to commit to taking at least five actions to protect the earth.Some of the EPA's suggested actions:
...

Did you know there is an 80-pound gorilla sitting in your garage (or shed)?Equipped with wheels and a long handle, it probably has a two-stroke engine that emits a sound most of us have come to associate with warmer months.The lawnmower is a part of Americana. Many people relish the......

The federal Environmental Protection Agency has announced a plan  to test air quality at schools nationwide to determine if students are at risk from airborne pollutants.But whether that testing will include schools in Lancaster County is not known.EPA administrator Lisa Jackso......

Concerned about toxic pollutants falling on playgrounds, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will require Pennsylvania and other states to test the air quality near schools. At least one local school is already being tested because of those pollution concerns: Locust Grove, a campus of ......

Correction — Ann Breslin, project manager for the Strube Inc. environmental cleanup project, is employed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Her place of employment was misidentified in the article below, posted on LancasterOnline S......

State officials said recent air-quality tests gave reason to doubt USA Today's claim that many schools are "toxic hot spots."The state Department of Environmental Protection has cast doubt on a newspaper's report that labeled hundreds of schools in America — includi......

The phones stopped ringing for custom home construction about eight months ago at Pusey & Raffensperger Builders.The downturn in upscale housing hit the Lititz homebuilder early — months before the economy dropped off elsewhere.Even remodeling work has been slow. What jobs......

State Sen. Mike Brubaker has been immersed in the campaign to clean up the Chesapeake Bay for many years. Now, he's really rolling up his sleeves. Brubaker was named Thursday as Chesapeake Bay Commission vice chairman and leader of the Pennsylvania delegation to the tri-state ......

On Monday, Manheim Township commissioners approved a plan that could pave the way for the widening of Fruitville Pike and the construction of (drumroll!) another shopping center.I cover Manheim Township and have reported on the project, so I don't want to comment too much.Howeve......

A cluster of schools near some of the most pristine farmland in Lancaster County may be harboring hidden health hazards, according to USA Today.In a special report running this week, the newspaper identified Locust Grove Mennonite School as one of 435 schools in America that might be expos......

For 33 years, Don Ranck only worried about two products from his cow herd: milk to sell and manure to dispose of.But the owner of Verdant View Farm in Paradise Township fears that in the near future he and other farmers may have to worry about another emission from their animals — gr......

Franklin & Marshall College officials have taken exception to statements made at a community meeting Tuesday regarding the relocation of a portion of Norfolk Southern's rail yard to a former dump site.More than 100 people turned out Tuesday night to listen to a presentation by The ......

Some residents of Barrcrest and School Lane Hills aren't giving up their fight to keep the Dillerville rail yard away from their homes.More than 100 people turned out Tuesday night at Grace Baptist Church on Marietta Avenue to listen to a presentation by The Rail Road Action and Adviso......

A former supervisor of Penn Township's sewage treatment plant is accused of falsifying data and altering wastewater samples submitted to state environmental officials.J. Scott Shank, former superintendent of Northwestern Lancaster County Water and Sewer Authority, was arraigned Thursda......

Vegetable oil can be used for more than just cooking. Just ask Michael Hoy.Hoy and eight of his friends bought a school bus on eBay in 2006 and rode it across the country.Hoy said it was an excellent trip, except for one thing: the $3,000 he and his friends had to pay for diesel fue......

Southern Lancaster County residents will be able to express their concerns about a natural gas pipeline proposed to cut through the area at a meeting Tuesday with project developers.U.S. Rep. Joe Pitts set up the meeting on the AES Corp. natural gas pipeline project and will bring together......

You're not imagining it: Those ozone air pollution warnings out of Harrisburg have been coming faster and more furiously this year. But, no, the air itself has not grown that much hotter or goopier. "The [pollution] standards have been made more stringent," said Kevi......

Suddenly, corn ethanol is no longer the darling in the nation's desperate search for an energy alternative to oil. In recent weeks, Republican presidential candidate John McCain, Gov. Ed Rendell and U.S. Rep. Joe Pitts have taken actions to slow what had been a corn ethanol bandwagon....

Officials at Franklin & Marshall College on Thursday told about 200 residents that there are no increased environmental risks in moving the Dillerville rail yard to their neighborhood.The residents, many from the Old School Lane Hills and Barrcrest neighborhoods, also were told that th......

A local environmental consultant tested toxic leachate oozing out of Lancaster County Central Park last week. Prognosis? Murky. Deb Werner, who handles public relations for the Department of Parks and Recreation, said she had no information on the study conducted by GemChem Inc., an enviro......

While Lititz Borough's water sources are back at full capacity, signs of an E. coli problem have been discovered.••• Water sources for Lititz Borough customers returned to full capacity in April, three months after......

They often spend their entire lives in small cages, stacked one on top of the other.They endure intense heat and cold, rarely get medical care and never get any exercise. Some lose the ability to walk because they never leave their cages.Vocal chords are crushed with a metal pipe so......

By not fixing those dripping faucets, homeowners could be watching their money go down the drain.Educating yourself about water conservation is one of the first steps to stopping that money from washing away.Simple things, such as replacing old toilets or going to the......

Tossing a pair of batteries into the kitchen trash can can't be that big of a deal. What's wrong with pouring a cupful of used paint thinner down the drain?I even remember dropping an old glass thermometer or two on the bathroom floor and watching, and apparently breathing in, some......

Residents fighting a plan to move a rail yard to the edge of their neighborhoods hope they got their group's cause on TRAC.The Railroad Action Committee, which currently is seven homeowners in Lancaster and East Hempfield townships, held its first public meeting Tuesday to inform neighbors......

Strube Inc., the Marietta-based firm ordered in January to remove radioactive aircraft dials from several of its Lancaster County warehouses, has been ordered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to take over cleanup operations at its headquarters.An order issued Wednesday by EPA re......

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......

Troy McBride was soaking up the sun at Elizabethtown College's "solar cabin" last week and talking about the weak link in renewable energy systems: The battery. A lot of systems use ordinary lead-acid units to absorb energy generated through solar panels or wind turbines. The......

Removal of radioactive World War II dials in eight acres of storage warehouses in Columbia, Marietta, Maytown and Mount Joy could cost nearly $2 million, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. EPA has ordered an "emergency removal response" at eight old warehouses owned by Strub......

After weeks of legal wrangling, federal officials have been permitted to access the warehouses belonging to Strube Inc. of Marietta that contain radioactive material.According to Roy Seneca, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Environmental Protection, Strube agreed Tuesday to allow EPA......

The feds are stepping in to take over removal of radioactive instrument dials from seven Strube Inc. sites in western Lancaster County.The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officially took on the job at the request of the state Department of Environmental Protection after Strube Inc. of......

A Lancaster County firm is under 24-hour surveillance by representatives from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency while radioactive material is removed from seven of its warehouses.Strube Inc., of Marietta, was ordered Monday by the state Department of Environmental Protection to remo......

For students in Joshua Shortuse's environmental science classes at Ephrata High School, studying the water quality of the Cocalico Creek was an eye-opening experience. "Most of the pollution comes from things you can't see," observed senior Austin Lorah. "It surprised me ......

Agents from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency took water samples Tuesday from a Penn Township hog farm, eight neighboring wells and a residence served by Lititz Borough Water System. The samples will be tested for nitrate and fecal coliform, EPA spokesman David Sternberg said Thursday. H......

Between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day, household waste increases by more than 25 percent. Food waste, shopping bags, packaging, wrapping paper, bows and ribbons — it all adds up to an additional 1 million tons of trash per week in America.Lancaster Free Market founder Erin McSo......

Matthew Colip has seen the United States from a perspective few people ever experience.He has slept in the desert in Utah, spent a night in a teepee in Colorado and passed over the 11,312-foot Monarch Pass of the Continental Divide using only the power of his two legs, all in the name of c......

Students of fine metalworking at Hempfield High School are learning something old is sometimes better than something new.Nathan Boring, a student art teacher at Hempfield, has begun participating a project called Radical Jewelry Makeover. In it, metal students discover recycled jewelry is ......

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has a cleanup plan for the Superfund site near the Susquehanna River in Columbia.Essentially, time and Mother Nature will do the work from this point forward, and the EPA will monitor their progress at the former UGI Columbia Gas Co. property on Fro......

(AP)Penn State University has reported a minor leak of "slightly radioactive water" at its Breazeale nuclear research reactor but said Thursday the leak poses no risk to workers, the community or the environment.Workers on Tuesday discovered water leaking from the pool in which the reactor......

Bond — Richard Bond returned to the county Tuesday four decades after graduating from college here.Calling it a triumphant return may be an understatement for Bond, a 1969 Elizabethtown College grad who was named chief executive of Tyson Foods 15 months ago.Speaking before a g......

(AP)Gov. Ed Rendell, who has been outspoken on the need to limit emissions of global warming gases, has not delivered on a promise to come up with his own strategy for Pennsylvania.Administration spokesmen would give no reason for the delay, other than to say a plan is still being worked o......

Members of Lititz Borough Council announced at Tuesday night's meeting they were ending an investigation into the construction of a hog-farm operation west of town in Penn Township and into allegations a borough employee made false statements about it.Council looked at several issues s......

Col. Xavier Stewart bent down next to the "victim" and applied a deep red substance to her skin.He took his time, careful to make it appear the "victim" was in fact injured. When satisfied, he stood up and went back to his microphone."Anybody else need any m......

A national environmental group has named PPL Corp.'s coal-fired Brunner Island power plant one of the 50 dirtiest power plants in the country.In its report, "Dirty Kilowatts," which was released Thursday, the nonprofit Environmental Integrity Project ranked the Brunner Island......

Several states, including California, along with Australia, Canada and the European Union are moving towards a phase-out of incandescent lightbulbs. "Change a Light, Change the World" is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's slogan on www.en......

We've all done it at one time or another — polished off a soda and tossed the plastic bottle into the trash without much thought.But how many people realize that one particular action will take centuries to undo?Scientists say a single plastic bottle could take up to 700 y......

Back in the good old days, all a person had to do to feel good on Earth Day was pick up some litter or plant a tree. Nowadays, Earth Day activities are all about reducing our "carbon footprint."Most of us didn't even know we had one, let alone understand why or how to reduce ......

A county agency has made history through its market approach to battling global warming.The Lancaster County Solid Waste Management Authority announced Thursday it had recorded the first-ever trans-Atlantic exchange of project-based greenhouse-gas reduction credits, also called "carbon cre......

(Miami Herald)Hard to believe, but they're at it again. After 2002, when a National Cancer Institute statement reporting no link between abortion and breast cancer was changed by the Bush administration to say evidence of a link was inconclusive; after the administration cut language on glo......

How the lawsuit is resolved could affect Lancaster County’s air, considered among the worst in the United States for the amount of airborne soot residents breathe year-round.

The Bush administration and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency failed to uphold federal law when they refused in Sep...

Armstrong will give undetermined millions of dollars to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, to compensate EPA for the costs, court records show. The settlement between the company and the agency, ending three years of negotiations, was signed Friday by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Judith K. Fitzge......

The county got more bad news Tuesday when the U.S. Department of Environmental Protection reported that Lancaster is one of 22 counties in the state that likely will not meet national health standards regarding fine-particle pollution.

That means the county has an excess of fine p......