Celebrating a Century and a Half: The Geologic Survey

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Celebrating a Century and a Half: The Geologic Survey The Pennsylvania Geo­logical Survey, offi­cially known today as the Bureau of Topo­graphic and Geologic Survey, and one of the bureaus of the Department of Environmental Resources, is one of only a very few of the Common­wealth’s executive branch agencies whose history can be traced to the first half of the nineteenth century. Created in 1836, the survey spawned three subsequent geologic...
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A Century of Conservation: The Story of Pennsylvania’s State Parks

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on A Century of Conservation: The Story of Pennsylvania’s State Parks Pennsylvania’s state park system is celebrating its centennial as one of the country’s largest and most popular recreational attractions. Each year, thirty-six million people visit one (or more) of the Keystone State’s one hundred and fourteen parks to picnic, hike, swim, boat, camp, ski, snowmobile, fish, hunt, or raft white water rapids. This sprawling collec­tion of open...
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Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf Our Priceless Heritage: Pennsylvania State Parks, 1893-1993 by Dan Cupper Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 1993 (70 pages, paper, $12.95) “Priceless” is a word that best defines the Keystone State’s natural history, and Our Priceless Heritage: Pennsylvania State Parks, 1893-1993, is a copiously...
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Documents from the Three Mile Island Crisis

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Documents from the Three Mile Island Crisis In late March 1979, the nation ex­perienced its worst commercial nuclear accident as a result of techni­cal malfunctions and operator error at the Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear generating station near Harrisburg. The crisis, which began on Wednes­day, March 28, lasted for several days and prompted the evacuation of thousands of residents. The accident and reaction to it are well docu­mented in...
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Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf Big Steel: The First Century of the United States Steel Corporation By Kenneth Warren University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001 (405 pages, cloth, $32.00) At its formation a century ago, in 1901, the United States Steel Corporation was the world’s largest industrial organization. Within its first year, the company was producing two-thirds of America’s raw steel, and soon supported the...
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Maurice K. Goddard: The Commonwealth’s Conservation Czar

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Maurice K. Goddard: The Commonwealth’s Conservation Czar There is a point in crossing the top of the Allegheny Mountains between Pittsburgh and Harris­burg at which a traveler sees, at every turn, only trees. It is one of the most spectacular views on the North American Continent. The scene lacks the frenetic energy of Niagara Falls, or the awe-filling majesty of the Grand Canyon, but this several­-hundred-square-mile panorama of second-growth forest...
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Karl Mason (1915-1966)

Posted by on Nov 24, 2013 in | Comments Off on Karl Mason (1915-1966) If asked to describe his life’s work, those who remember Karl Mason would most likely exclaim, “He wanted to clean up the world!” If pressed to date the beginning of environmental regulation by a single state agency, many Penn­sylvanians would probably choose 1970, the year the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources – predecessor to the Commonwealth’s...
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