EnviroPolitics Blog

Alterra won’t build chemical recycling plant in PA – for now

Environmental groups had long opposed the proposal, but Alterra says it ultimately halted plans due to a landowner’s decision. Alterra intends to search for another facility location in the region

*Alterra’s chemical recycling plant in Akron, Ohio, uses pyrolysis to manufacture new plastics. The company withdrew a proposal to build a similar plant in Pennsylvania. Courtesy of Alterra*

By Megan Quinn, Waste Dive

Listen to the article 5 minutes

Alterra Energy has withdrawn its proposal to build a chemical recycling facility in Sugarloaf, Pennsylvania. The project called for processing up to 189 million pounds of plastic a year and converting it into a “synthetic oil for the manufacturing of new plastics and other valuable products.”

In an August 8 letter to the Sugarloaf Township Board of Supervisors, Alterra said it was “no longer able to pursue development” on a chosen parcel of land due to the landowner’s decision to market the land to a data center developer instead. The chemical recycler says it will continue to “monitor land opportunities within the surrounding area.”

Environmental groups such as Beyond Plastics, Luzerne County Community Action Coalition, Save Our Susquehanna and others celebrated the project’s withdrawal from the proposed location, saying the plant would have caused air pollution, snarled traffic and put strain on the surrounding environment.

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Ospreys, hawks, eagles all part of Hawk Mountain migration count

By Molly Bilinski, Lehigh Valley News

ALBANY TWP., Pa. — Hawk Mountain’s official autumn migration count is underway, with more than 100 trekking birds of prey recorded so far.

Staff and volunteers at the sanctuary have monitored the autumnal migration since 1934 as part of conservation research efforts, making it the longest-running raptor migration count in the world.

The first full week showed “solid migration with a high variety of species,” according to a Wednesday newsletter from the sanctuary.

“Tuesday took the lead with 28 migrants pushing past on a light southeast wind,” officials said. “Twelve broad-winged hawks and seven ospreys made a great early season flight as a bald eagle, Cooper’s hawk, sharpshin, red-tailed hawk and northern harrier joined them.

“This time of year, the flight is highly variable and controlled by the weather, so look for favorable conditions that will help the migrants through.”

The count, which started Aug. 15 and runs through Dec. 15, averages 18,000 raptors, with one-day peak counts of more than 3,000 birds during September.

Raptors and other migrants

As of Tuesday, 140 raptors were recorded, including 48 broad-winged hawks, 16 red-tailed hawks, 24 osprey and 27 bald eagles, counts show.

Hawk Mountain 2025 autumn migration — The first full week of Hawk Mountain’s annual autumn migration count is complete, with more than 100 trekking birds of prey recorded.

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Americans Eating Sewage-Tainted Canadian Oysters

Canada is a major oyster supplier to the U.S. Both diners and oystermen are harmed by inaction on pollution

*Freshly cleaned oysters are seen in Nova Scotia’s Chance Harbour. Photo, credit: Molly MacNaughton/IJB*

By Agatha Khishchenko, Andy Lehren, Dori Seeman, Robert Cribb, and Molly MacNaughton, Inside Climate News

Mark Kapczynski had been looking forward to it for weeks.

He had VIP tickets for him and his wife to attend an upscale seafood festival in Los Angeles last December, where they would feast on the food he grew up eating as a kid in Boston.

Surrounded by shellfish presented raw on ice by some of the city’s best chefs, Kapczynski said he chose to sample a few “Fanny Bay” oysters harvested from the southern British Columbia coastline.

“After three or four hours, I wished I was dead, it hurt so much,” said Kapczynski, who was hit with severe abdominal pain, vomiting every 30 minutes for five hours. “It was the most painful thing I’ve ever felt.”

Read the full story here

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Trump team sees Penn Station reconstruction starting in 2027

By Sri Taylor, Bloomberg

NJ Transit And Amtrak Leave NYC Commuters With 90-Minute Delays — *Commuters watch a departures board at Penn Station in New York on June 18, 2024.Photographer: Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg*

The highly anticipated renovation of New York City’s Pennsylvania Station will kick off construction by the end of 2027, the Trump administration announced on Wednesday.

The $7 billion project calls for replacing the current transit hub with a 250,000 square-foot single-level facility, new amenities and retail stores, as well as mixed-income housing. Penn Station was once an architectural marvel, built in an Beaux-Arts style with soaring soaring steel and glass providing travelers with light and space on their journeys.

The old structure was torn down in the 1960s and replaced with an underground hub to make room for Madison Square Garden, the iconic Manhattan sports and concert venue. Now, one the nation’s busiest rail station is dark and cramped, often frustrating commuters who ride New Jersey Transit and the Long Island Rail Road.

“Crumbling infrastructure, bleak and dirty architecture, unnavigable hallways and no inviting spaces for families with kids – the current state of Penn Station is unacceptable,” US Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement.

Penn Station is one of the major gateways to Manhattan, logging more than 1,000 daily trains across 21 tracks, according to figures released by Amtrak. More than 200,000 commuter and Amtrak passenger trips go through the hub each day.

The announcement comes after the Trump administration moved to make Amtrak — the owner of Penn Station — the lead of the project, effectively ousting the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The federal government said the transit agency, which operates the New York City subway system, “proved it was incapable of delivering major infrastructure on time or on budget.”

Amtrak will receive a nearly $43 million federal grant to help fund the project development and the solicitation of a master developer, as well as permitting and preliminary engineering work.

Andy Byford, the lead for the project and a former New York City Transit President — nicknamed “Train Daddy” — will start the process to solicit a developer on Aug. 28, according to the statement. He was appointed as a special adviser to Amtrak’s board of directors for the redevelopment earlier this year. The process will start by the end of October and a selection will be made by the end of May 2026, the statement detailed.

Once shovels are in the ground, commuters can expect to experience some delays and changes to their routes, according to Byford. “We’ll strategize on how to do it with minimum disruption,” he said.

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Lawsuit seeks to block SEPTA from terminating routes serving poor neighborhoods

A packed 18 bus pulls up near Girls High at Broad and Olney Streets on Aug. 25, 2025 in Philadelphia. A new lawsuit claims that SEPTA's deep service cuts harm communities of color and low-income riders. — A packed 18 bus pulls up near Girls High at Broad and Olney Streets on Aug. 25, 2025 in Philadelphia. A new lawsuit claims that SEPTA’s deep service cuts harm communities of color and low-income riders. Photo credit: Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer

By Thomas Fitzgerald, Philadelphia Inquirer

Consumer advocates and two SEPTA riders sued the transit agency on Wednesday seeking to stop service reductions, arguing that the cuts unlawfully place a greater burden on people of color and low-income communities.

Philadelphia lawyer George Bochetto filed the complaint in Common Pleas Court on behalf of consumer advocate Lance Haver and two Black SEPTA users in Philadelphia who say they have been harmed.

The plaintiffs are asking for the court to order SEPTA to reverse the service cuts, which began Aug. 24.

The transit agency projects a $213 million deficit in its operations budget this fiscal year, which began July 1, and says the shortfall will continue each year without a stable source of state funding.

Read the full story here

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With only a vague explanation, Trump is wrecking offshore wind

The Trump administration is halting wind projects that had been approved, financed, and underway — while providing little to no justification.

Rows of massive, white tubes, parts of what would become supports for wind turbines, are lined up on a flat tan pier by sparkling blue water in a harbor. — *Components for the ongoing construction of the Revolution Wind offshore wind farm in New London, Conn., in November. Credit…Cj Gunther/EPA, via Shutterstock*

By Brad Plumer and Lisa Friedman, The New York Times, Aug. 26, 2025

When the Trump administration ordered that construction stop last week at Revolution Wind, a giant wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island that was nearly finished, it alluded vaguely to national security concerns but did not offer any further explanation.

It’s becoming a striking pattern.

The order was the third time the Trump administration had revoked permits or halted work on wind farms that had already received federal approval while offering little legal justification for doing so, following actions against wind projects in New York and Idaho. Legal experts say that there is little basis for blocking projects that have already received permits.

The Trump administration has signaled in a court filing that it next plans to rescind federal approvals for yet another wind farm, the Maryland Offshore Wind Project, which had not yet begun construction but would consist of up to 114 wind turbines off the coast of Ocean City, Md. The filing was first reported by WBOC.

These extraordinary moves are creating a crisis for the wind industry, experts said, putting thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of investments at risk. Even if developers are able to challenge the legality of the administration’s actions in court and ultimately win, the delays can drive up costs and inject enough uncertainty to potentially kill wind projects.

Read the full story here

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