In a short time, the Schuylkill went from being considered waters of "uncommon purity" to being this country's dirtiest river. That distinction resulted in the Schuylkill River becoming the focus of a precedent-setting river cleanup effort from 1947 to 1951.The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania hired a team of engineers to free the Schuylkill from the millions of tons of coal sediment that had filled its bed and raised its floodplain.The Schuylkill River Project Engineers dredged the river and trapped sediment in desilting pools, the kind of practices that river restorations are undertaken to undo today. But at the end of the project, the Schuylkill emerged A RIVER AGAIN.

Crowded, hot, subject to violent swings in climate, with a government unable or unwilling to face the most vital challenges, the rich and poor increasingly living in worlds apart; for most of the world, this picture is of a possible future. For India, it is the very real present. In this lyrical exploration of life, loss, and survival, Meera Subramanian travels in search of the ordinary people and microenterprises determined to revive India's ravaged natural world: an engineer-turned-farmer brings organic food to Indian plates; villagers resuscitate a river run dry; cook stove designers persist on the quest for a smokeless fire; biologists bring vultures back from the brink of extinction; and in Bihar, one of India's most impoverished states, a bold young woman teaches adolescents the fundamentals of sexual health. While investigating these five environmental challenges, Subramanian discovers the stories that renew hope for a nation with the potential to lead India and the planet into a sustainable and prosperous future.

"India has endured a century of clouds heavy with acid rain, and rivers so thick with industrial effluent that they catch fire. Pollutants from toxic pesticides seep through the rich soils of rural Punjab, where a "Cancer Train" shuttles droves of farmers sick with chemical poisoning to oncology centers in foreign states. Sixty percent of the population lives without access to potable water. India's ecosystem is on a precipice. In A River Runs Again, Meera Subramanian explores this environmental catastrophe through the five elements that make the building blocks of life--earth, water, fire, air, and ether"--

With bountiful salmon and fertile plains, the Duwamish River has drawn people to its shores over the centuries for trading, transport, and sustenance. Chief Se’alth and his allies fished and lived in villages here and white settlers established their first settlements nearby. Industrialists later straightened the river’s natural turns and built factories on its banks, floating in raw materials and shipping out airplane parts, cement, and steel. Unfortunately, the very utility of the river has been its undoing, as decades of dumping led to the river being declared a Superfund cleanup site. Using previously unpublished accounts by Indigenous people and settlers, BJ Cummings’s compelling narrative restores the Duwamish River to its central place in Seattle and Pacific Northwest history. Writing from the perspective of environmental justice—and herself a key figure in river restoration efforts—Cummings vividly portrays the people and conflicts that shaped the region’s culture and natural environment. She conducted research with members of the Duwamish Tribe, with whom she has long worked as an advocate. Cummings shares the river’s story as a call for action in aligning decisions about the river and its future with values of collaboration, respect, and justice.

Let the River Run Silver Again is an environmental conservation success story for students ages 10 to 15 and the teachers, parents, and others who mentor them. It is a source of information and insight for those who want to learn about and benefit from the success of others as well as those who are interested in developing environmental restoration programs in their own watershed. The full-color format presents engaging, action-packed photographs along with maps, graphs, and original art that extends the information presented in multiple directions and dimensions. The greater part of the book follows students from one elementary school in Maryland as they take part, over a period of nine years, in a major regional conservation initiative to restore populations of an important fish, the American shad, to the Chesapeake Bay watershed and to allow the shad to breach numerous dams while migrating to many of their former spawning areas. Numerous private organizations and local, state, and federal agencies contributed to the program - which was indeed successful - but the emphasis in this book is upon the students, their teachers, and their community as they collectively committed to the project, followed through with this commitment, and benefited in myriad ways from the success of the project. The narrative of the students' projects is presented in an energetic style, and at a level, that will both engage and inform other readers of the same age. A short section at the end of the book draws upon the insights offered by the students' story while identifying pathways for students and their mentors to the development and implementation of water, wetland, and watershed restoration projects that could be implemented in other locations and circumstances. The students' experience thus serves as a model and inspiration for student or youth-group conservation projects anywhere.

CLICK HERE to download the first chapter from Elwha: A River Reborn (Provide us with a little information and we'll send your download directly to your inbox) A compelling exploration of one of the largest dam removal projects in the world—and the efforts to save a stunning Northwest ecosystem * Co-published with The Seattle Times * 125 color photographs, including rare historic images * Dam removal started in September 2011 while restoration work continues today In the fall of 2011, the Times was on hand when a Montana contractor removed the first pieces from two concrete dams on the Elwha River which cuts through the Olympic range. It was the beginning of the largest dam removal project ever undertaken in North America—one dam was 200 feet tall—and the start of an unprecedented attempt to restore an entire ecosystem. More than 70 miles of the Elwha and its tributaries course from the mountain headwaters to clamming beaches on the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Through interviews, field work, archival and historical research, and photojournalism, The Seattle Times has explored and reported on the dam removal, the Elwha ecosystem, its industrialization, and now its renewal. Elwha: A River Reborn is based on these feature articles. Richly illustrated with stunning photographs, as well as historic images, graphics, and a map, Elwha tells the interwoven stories of this region. Meet the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe, who anxiously await the return of renowned salmon runs savored over the generations in the stories of their elders. Discover the biologists and engineers who are bringing the dams down and laying the plan for renewal, including an unprecedented revegetation effort that will eventually cover more than 700 acres of mudflats. When the dam started to come down in Fall 2011—anticipated for more than 20 years since Congress passed the Elwha Restoration Act—it was the beginning of a $350 million project observed around the world. Elwha: A River Reborn is inspiring and instructive, a triumphant story of place, people, and environment striving to come together. Winner of the Nautilus Awards 2014 "Better Books for a Better World" Silver Award!

A “beautifully written, poignant exploration of family, art, culture, immigration…and love” (Jean Kwok, author of Searching for Sylvie Lee and Girl in Translation) set against the backdrop of China’s Cultural Revolution that follows a father’s quest to reunite his family before his precocious daughter’s momentous birthday, which Garth Greenwell calls “one of the most beautiful debuts I’ve read in years.” How many times in life can we start over without losing ourselves? In the summer of 1986, in a small Chinese village, ten-year-old Junie receives a momentous letter from her parents, who had left for America years ago: her father promises to return home and collect her by her twelfth birthday. But Junie’s growing determination to stay put in the idyllic countryside with her beloved grandparents threatens to derail her family’s shared future. Junie doesn’t know that her parents, Momo and Cassia, are newly estranged from one another in their adopted country, each holding close private tragedies and histories from the tumultuous years of their youth during China’s Cultural Revolution. While Momo grapples anew with his deferred musical ambitions and dreams for Junie’s future in America, Cassia finally begins to wrestle with a shocking act of brutality from years ago. For Momo to fulfill his promise, he must make one last desperate attempt to reunite all three family members before Junie’s birthday—even if it means bringing painful family secrets to light. Swimming Back to Trout River is a “symphony of a novel” (BookPage) that weaves together the stories of Junie, Momo, Cassia, and Dawn—a talented violinist from Momo’s past—while depicting their heartbreak and resilience, tenderly revealing the hope, compromises, and abiding ingenuity that make up the lives of immigrants. Feng’s debut is “filled with tragedy yet touched with life-affirming passion” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), and “Feng weaves a plot both surprising and inevitable, with not a word to spare” (Booklist, starred review).