Celia Llopis-Jepsen

1 month ago | kcur.org | Celia Llopis-Jepsen

So you’ve been thinking about getting rid of your lawn, or at least having less. You’ll attract birds and bees and you won’t have to mow as much. Nice! But where to start? Master gardener Paula Diaz gives us the scoop on how to kill grass, where to look for the right native plant species to replace it, and how to start laying out your flower beds. Come learn from someone who’s been winning over her neighbors to give native plants a shot.

1 month ago | nebraskapublicmedia.org | Celia Llopis-Jepsen

Nitrate from fertilizers also percolates into aquifers, infiltrating the drinking supplies of the many cities and towns that depend on underground water. In recent decades, more and more of those communities have started pouring millions or tens of millions of dollars into building treatment facilities to process water that has become unsafe to drink because it now contains so much nitrate.

1 month ago | kcur.org | Celia Llopis-Jepsen

The U.S. Department of Energy had a vision: Slash in half the amount of a potent greenhouse gas that enters the atmosphere when growing corn and sorghum for biofuel. That gas — nitrous oxide — mostly comes from spraying chemical fertilizer onto fields. So in practice, achieving the agency’s goal meant figuring out how to grow those crops with dramatically less nitrogen fertilizer, but without cutting into harvests.

1 month ago | www2.ljworld.com | Celia Llopis-Jepsen

A new report from Bird Safe KC gives a peek into one of the top challenges that birds must navigate during their spring and fall migrations through the metropolitan area — windows. Over the past six years, dozens of volunteers have checked buildings in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, and other areas for birds that die after hitting glass. They’ve tallied nearly 1,900 carcasses — a small sample of what scientists say is a much larger problem.

1 month ago | wbur.org | Celia Llopis-Jepsen

Buildings and light pollution pose deadly threat to migrating birds. Here's how you can helpApril 24, 2025Celia Llopis-Jepsen, Kansas News ServiceSpring migration can be a deadly journey for billions of birds as they travel north. Several cities in the Midwest create an especially deadly path for birds where light pollution and buildings confuse them. Some people are now hoping to replicate a model in Chicago, where bird building collisions drastically declined thanks to a simple solution.