Two dozen landowners across three states will share more than $175,000 in Common Waters Fund grants to develop forest management plans and implement sustainable management practices that protect water quality. The awards were distributed in September by the Pinchot Institute for Conservation.

Read the full article on The River Reporter's website.

Six retired Chiefs of the Forest Service call on Senate to extend stewardship contracting authority.

In collaboration with the Pinchot Institute for Conservation, forest scientists from Oregon State University are testing a new ground-based light detection and ranging (LIDAR) technology on the city of Vernonia's municipal forest lands.

VERNONIA — A cemetery may seem an unusual place to test the world’s first ground-based laser scanning forest carbon valuation system, but then again, a project that links carbon credits with health care is not the norm either.

Read the full article in The Daily Astorian or visit the Forest Health Human Health Initiative webpage to learn more.

Ecosystem Marketplace has published a two-part feature on the Pinchot Institute's Bay Bank, an innovative program to help landowners earn credit for conservation measures undertaken on their property. Part one focusses on how the Bay Bank can specifically help family farmers and small landowners; the second part profiles a landowner demonstration project featuring brook trout credits. For more information about the Bay Bank please visit the Bay Bank program page.

The Common Waters Fund, a project of the Pinchot Institute, recently awarded $250,000 in grants to forest owners in the Upper Delaware River Basin to develop forest management plans and implement sustainable management practices that protect water quality.

Visit the Pike County Courier for the full story.

Plans for woody biomass facilities and other innovative energy projects in Vernonia are moving forward with the help of a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The USDA awarded the city $25,000 from its Forest Service Woody Biomass Utilization grant, part of a $3 million package of funding doled out to renewable energy projects nationwide.

Pinchot Institute Senior Fellow Catherine Mater has worked closely on the project, the first of its kind planned in the nation.

Read the full article here or visit the Pinchot Institue's bioenergy page to learn more.

Wayne County Conservation District Watershed Specialist Jamie Knecht talks about the Common Waters Fund on Wayne Pike Now, a weekly radio show in northeastern Pennsylvania.  The Common Waters Fund is a $1 million fund to maintain and improve the forests of the Upper Delaware Valley.  The Common Water Fund is administered by the Pinchot Institute for Conservation.

For more information about the Common Waters Fund or to download a podcast of the interview, visit Wayne Pike News .

A study of the potential health impacts of gas drilling has been proposed for the Delaware River Basin.  The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health proposed the Health Impact Assessment (HIA), believed to be only the third of its kind in the country.  The idea of an HIA came out of a December 2010 meeting of stakeholders in the Pinchot Institute’s Marcellus Shale Report, an overview of best management practices, current regulations and natural resource information.

Read the River Reporter article here .

Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell spoke to WNPR about the centennial of the Weeks Act from the Pinchot Institute's Symposium, "Forest Land Conservation in the 21st Century" at Yale University's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.  Listen to the interview here or learn more about the symposium and the Weeks Act Centennial here.

Forest Service Chief Tidwell Urges Stronger Conservation Partnerships at Land Conservation Policy Symposium in New Haven

On Thursday, the town of Vernonia, Oregon, broke ground for an innovative K-12 school that will double as a community center. The school will also function as a center of rural sustainability. Oregon university students will conduct research on how timber towns, like Vernonia, can use their forest resources to reinvent themselves. Please click here for the article, written by The Oregonian Editorial Board.

The Chesapeake Bay Program reports on Small Watershed Grants given by the USFS. The Pinchot Institute will use $120,000 from the USFS for eastern brook trout habitat credits. The project will purchase credits for protection and enhancement of coldwater stream eastern brook trout habitat in the Cacapon/Lost River watershed in Hardy, Hampshire and Morgan Counties. Please click here for the article.