Energy
“Can you scooch so [the bug] doesn’t climb on me?” Theodora Reese, 6, asked her mother, Phoebe, during a picnic at Ambridge Reservoir. (Photo by Oliver Morrison/PublicSource)

From Shenango site to Shell cracker plant: A tour of the region’s industrial and environmental sites

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Fifty climate activists packed onto a tour bus near the Energy Innovation Center in Uptown on Saturday. “I’d like to see us go on a fun trip somewhere,” Perry Recker, a member of the Pittsburgh chapter of the Climate Reality Project, had heard someone say at one of their recent climate change meetings. From that comment, they planned a tour. As if on cue, applause broke out when the last woman climbed aboard and the tour could start. Nine months ago, Al Gore, the founder of he Climate Reality Project, came to Pittsburgh and spoke to more than 1,000 activists.

On the beat

The derailment roundup

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Environment Derailment after derailment. They just keep happening. And June was a busy month for crashes.

Over the past several years, there have been numerous derailments in North America carrying crude from North Dakota’s Bakken Shale. These accidents have sparked increased calls from citizens, the rail industry and lawmakers for the federal government to increase safety regulations.

To keep up with these incidents, new safety regulations and other train derailments across the country, PublicSource provides a roundup of stories each month.

ENVIRONMENT

Rural Pennsylvanians with contaminated water, potentially from fracking, feel abandoned by state regulators

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Since 2007, at least 2,800 water-related complaints have been investigated by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s Oil and Gas Program. Officials found ties to the drilling industry in 279. Another 500 or so cases, including the Eakins’, are open. While regulators try to catch up to natural gas exploration, some residents of the state have gone months, even years, without access to clean water at their homes.