Clean energy programs ready to rock and roll
Pennsylvania's $650 million Alternative Energy Investment Fund approved by the General Assembly and Governor Rendell last summer is now poised to start delivering the goods and the jobs. After some fits and starts due to the tight credit market and the need to create program guidelines, key elements of the package are now falling into place:
PennFuture maintains a comprehensive list of clean energy and energy conservation funding programs on our website.
Growing in the wind
The American Wind Energy Association's annual industry report is out with plenty of interesting facts and figures. Employment in the wind energy field jumped about 70 percent over the past year, from 50,000 to approximately 80,000. Our national wind generating fleet will generate enough electricity to power nearly seven million homes. Iowa and Minnesota now get over seven percent of their power needs from wind, and Iowa passed California as the second leading wind producing state behind Texas.
DEP proposes new water discharge rule
DEP Acting Secretary John Hanger announced that the agency will seek new regulations for industrial wastewater that is high in total dissolved solids, or TDS. DEP needs the new regulations to ensure that wastewater generated at Marcellus Shale gas drilling sites does not damage streams and rivers. Marcellus wastewater contains high levels of TDS in the form of salts and can be two to four times saltier than seawater. High TDS levels can harm aquatic life, ruin the taste of drinking water and render river water unfit for industrial users.
Don't miss Poisoned Waters starting Tuesday
Be in front of the TV or set your DVRs for a compelling PBS documentary on the perilous condition of America's waterways. Frontline's Poisoned Waters airs Tuesday, April 21, at 9:00 p.m., and will also be available for viewing on-line starting that day. The documentary features two of our nation's premier estuaries, the Chesapeake Bay and Puget Sound.
Podcast of the Week
In March, Philadelphia's Urban Sustainability Forum centered on the multitude of green-minded projects, initiatives, and groups working throughout Philadelphia neighborhoods. PennFuture's Christine Knapp spoke with a few of the featured presenters in this week's featured podcast.
Who's got the greenest block in all of Philadelphia? Bets are it's one of the communities in Sustainable 19125, or it soon will be. As Shanta Schachter, director of development and operations for the New Kensington Community Development Corporation explains, they are out to show the Next Great City that their zip code has sustainability cornered.
How do you make positive change in your neighborhood? Start with who you know, the person right next door, and work your way out in concentric circles, advises Lara Kelly, co-chair of Northern Liberties Clean and Green. Home to Liberty Lands, the largest privately-owned park in the city, and perhaps the northeast, this group knows a thing or two about how to successfully nurture a green-up activity from idea to reality.
Helping Philadelphia community based organizations do just that-- make concepts into bricks-and-mortar projects, is Beth Miller's Community Design Collaborative, linking planners, architects, and landscape architects with neighborhood groups. The Collaborative funds that critical first 10 percent of projects, to aid in putting designs on paper, so that groups can move forward in obtaining support for completion.
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