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2 weeks ago | 
baltimoresun.com | Karl Blankenship
The U.S. Department of Agriculture in April announced the termination of its $3 billion "climate smart" program, a grantmaking initiative that was supporting hundreds of millions of dollars in conservation work in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. An April 14 USDA press release called the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities, which promoted farm conservation measures with climate benefits, as a "slush fund" with high administrative costs and often low payouts to farmers.
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3 weeks ago | 
southernmarylandchronicle.com | Karl Blankenship |David Higgins
The U.S. Department of Agriculture in April announced the termination of its $3 billion “climate smart” program, a grantmaking initiative that was supporting hundreds of millions of dollars in conservation work in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. An April 14 USDA press release called the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities, which promoted farm conservation measures with climate benefits, as a “slush fund” with high administrative costs and often low payouts to farmers.
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3 weeks ago | 
bayjournal.com | Karl Blankenship
The U.S. Department of Agriculture in April announced the termination of its $3 billion “climate smart” program, a grantmaking initiative that was supporting hundreds of millions of dollars in conservation work in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. An April 14 USDA press release called the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities, which promoted farm conservation measures with climate benefits, as a “slush fund” with high administrative costs and often low payouts to farmers.
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1 month ago | 
bayjournal.com | Karl Blankenship
Amanda Lee-Milner was looking for a way to get her goats something more to eat and help them get a bit of shade. She didn’t think it was part of a radical left-wing agenda. She was hoping to convert a 10-acre woodlot on her sheep and goat farm in Adams County, PA, into a series of fenced paddocks where the animals could graze among the trees.
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1 month ago | 
bayjournal.com | Karl Blankenship
Using some of the same drilling techniques and technologies that drove Pennsylvania’s natural gas boom, the state could unleash a cleaner energy source with the potential of meeting most of its future energy needs: geothermal.
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1 month ago | 
bayjournal.com | Karl Blankenship
Plans for a huge hydroelectric facility along the lower Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania that would drown hundreds of acres of land are heading to court. A coalition of conservation groups on March 14 filed a petition for review in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals challenging a preliminary permit approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in November for the project on Cuffs Run in York County.
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1 month ago | 
bayjournal.com | Karl Blankenship
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro in March announced the capping of the 300th abandoned well since he took office two years ago. That’s more than were capped in the previous decade. Pennsylvania has more abandoned wells than any other state. They are a major source of methane emissions, a powerful greenhouse gas, and can leak other contaminants, some of them toxic, into local waterways.
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2 months ago | 
bayjournal.com | Karl Blankenship
Drones, robotics and solar power are just a few of the new technologies used by farmers as they try to remain profitable while increasing production and reducing pollution. But getting widespread adoption of those new methods can be challenging and, at first, costly. In February, Pennsylvania agriculture officials announced $10 million in Agricultural Innovation Grants, which they say is the first program of its type in the country, to help promote new techniques.
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2 months ago | 
bayjournal.com | Karl Blankenship |Timothy B. Wheeler
Under legal pressure, the Trump administration has restored billions of dollars in environmental funding earmarked for states that had been held up for weeks. But huge amounts of funding that supports work by nonprofits, universities, local governments and others were still frozen a month after the White House sought on Jan. 27 to pause grants, despite several court rulings that the money be freed up.
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2 months ago | 
bayjournal.com | Karl Blankenship
Roughly a decade ago, when officials in Pennsylvania’s York County were struggling to put together Chesapeake Bay cleanup plans, they ran into a problem: No one believed their numbers. The county’s plans were based on goals established by computer models from the state-federal Bay Program partnership. The strategy called for municipalities, agencies and farmers to sharply ramp up efforts to reduce nutrient pollution entering waterways from livestock manure and fertilizer.
