Environmental Prognostication

Chesapeake Bay Watershed sign on I-70.Seasonal weather finally is upon us, maybe. Temperatures should be in the 40 F range, and they’re often in the 60s, but last year this time they were in the 80s, so I suppose it is a bit more seasonal. The juncos, looking like flying preachers in their white shirts and dark gray capes, have returned. Nearly all the other “snowbirds” – what northerners who move south for the winter are called – have departed for what they hope are warmer climes.

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Pa. residents share Chesapeake Bay waterfront

A recent newspaper story about efforts to reduce pollution in the Chesapeake Bay noted Pennsylvania does not have frontage on the bay. That is not quite accurate, unless one is a real estate seller.

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Bringing the Susquehanna to Gettysburg

Two miles upstream sits the Gettysburg Municipal Authority wastewater treatment plantWhen I was young, I lived on the shores of a lake of some 500 acres. The deepest part of the pond was, I think, about 80 feet – “The Hole,” my dad called it when he went fishing for quarry gone down to escape the too-warm surface water.

Around the lake were three year-round residences, and a few clusters of summer cottages. In winter, when the summer folks had gone back to town, two families remained; one was ours. The third year-round home was owned by a family who lived in town, spent weekends in Summer and none in Winter, and had enough money to make their summer cottage like their in-town home – large, with indoor “facilities.” Continue reading Bringing the Susquehanna to Gettysburg