Join us at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, March 13, at the Montour Preserve’s Education Center for a special movie presentation of Michael Kinney’s award-winning documentary, “Old River”

The film was recorded during Kinney’s 24-day, 228-mile paddling trip across the entire West Branch of the Susquehanna River. It includes the fascinating story behind the trip, many key sights and sounds along the way and covers a wide variety of river issues. 

Students of all ages engaged with the Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association's vendor table at the West Branch Area School District annual STEAM night at the high school.

"We had a good showing," said West Branch Regional Director Andrew Bechdel, who represented the association. "It was some of the most involved table engagement we've seen in the area so far."

​For the event, businesses and organizations throughout the region — as well as organizations within the school district — set up booths in the high school’s gymnasiums to teach students about science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics.

​More than 300 people braved minus-20-degree windchills and numerous roadways impacted by snowdrifts and limited visibility due to blowing snow to attend the Third Annual Environmental Education Expo at the Montour Preserve on Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026.

“It was great to see so many families brave the cold temperatures and wind. I thought the cold weather might keep people home,” said Renee Carey, director of the Northcentral PA Conservancy, one of 25 different groups that manned hands-on, interactive activities for families who attended the show.

“I had kids as young as 3 and as old as 19 play the game we brought. I think they all got something out of it, and enjoyed being a bird and trying to find food they could eat with their beak,” she said. “I really like the family focus of the event and the hands-on activities. I think the kids and their adults both enjoy learning and exploring.”

​It is hard for Tom Benfer to travel the rural roads of Montour and surrounding counties and not come across a spot where he and the Chillisquaque-Limestone Watershed Association has completed a project and made a vital impact over the past quarter-century.

“I drive around and I’ll say, look, we did that project and cleaned up trash at that site or helped do all those streambank plantings and this is where we got people to commit to keeping things 35 feet away from the creek,” he said. “I can go over to Beaver Run up on the Montour Ridge where you can’t even see the projects from the road – you have to walk back to them.”

Benfer can rattle off countless stories about trash pickups over steep banks of Route 45 and efforts to plant trees and establish wetlands along stretches of the Chillisquaque Creek near Route 254 like they happened yesterday.

Unfortunately, he and his group are no longer able to do this work – the watershed association that started in 1999 with a $5,000 grant and a commitment from Benfer to clean up the extended watershed was forced to shut down in 2024 due to lack of active membership.

​Riverkeeper note: The following column was written by Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper John Zaktansky. You can contact him directly via email. 

Bobwhite quail, after impact from a traumatic event, will call each other together into a tight grouping called a covey to regroup and fend off additional danger as a group. 

It was a phenomenon that always fascinated me growing up on a small game farm in central Pennsylvania. After the hunt when the quail that weren’t harvested that day were scattered, as evening approached, I’d hear an orchestrated symphony of “bob … bob-white” calls across my parent’s farm fields.

The birds used that call to gather before nightfall. They’d huddle together to share warmth and watch for predators.
I appreciate that instinct, and find myself bob-white quailing when tragedy strikes … when life throws a gut punch that leaves me or someone else in the immediate family reeling and we need to circle the wagons, pull away from the Matrix-like distractions of the external world around us and focus within.

My family had – and continue to navigate – one of those moments this holiday season. We unexpectedly lost my wife’s sister shortly after Thanksgiving and since then have been picking up the pieces, trying to figure out next steps for her two sons and how we all are going to manage the changes both immediate and long-term. 

​Our Middle Susquehanna Naturalist Calendar again offers a year's worth of nature-related dates, facts and other information to help better connect you to our natural resources. This includes expected sunrise and sunsets, moon phases, certain meteor showers, when various species are expected to be more active, wildflowers blooming, etc.

Included are ways for you to make and submit reports about your observations that can be used for citizen science, tips for nature journaling and information about the Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association and Vernal School Environmental Education Partnership.

​The 20-mile-long Chillisquaque Creek may not be the largest Pennsylvania River of the Year finalist, but the tributary of the Susquehanna's West Branch is definitely symbolic of the greater river basin’s history, issues and potential to overcome those challenges with creative collaborative solutions, according to Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper John Zaktansky.

“Many times, you look at the bigger Susquehanna River and can quickly get overwhelmed with the scale and scope of everything that needs to be done. However, when you focus on a snapshot like the Chillisquaque Creek and the key partners and resources available in this area, then recognition of something like River of the Year truly can make a difference,” he said. “We can showcase some incredible work that already has been done, shine a light on some of the bigger issues and how to maybe look at them a little differently and breathe life and key awareness into the groups and individuals that deserve a jolt of fresh air.”

The creek joins the Conestoga River and Lower Schuylkill River as the three finalists for the 2026 Pennsylvania River of the Year award. Voting is open through Jan. 16, 2026, with the winning waterway receiving specialized awareness and funding for a sojourn and other key projects and events.

​Sean Reese, Program Scientist of the Watershed Sciences and Engineering Program at Bucknell University's Center for Sustainability and the Environment has lived in the greater Chillisquaque Creek watershed community for many years.

​Recently proposed changes to the national Endangered Species Act could have devastating consequences to some of the most vulnerable species by weighing their value – and that of their habitat – against “economic impacts,” “national security” and other ambiguous and hard-to-scientifically quantify variables, according to various local environmental experts.

The Department of the Interior’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced on Nov. 19, 2025, four specific rules that would alter how the Endangered Species Act is implemented in an effort “to strengthen American energy independence, improve regulatory predictability and ensure federal actions align with the best reading of the law” according to a press release from the federal agency.

Public comment is encouraged on these proposed changes through Dec. 22, 2025, by going to each of the following four links:

• Endangered and Threatened Species: Listing Endangered and Threatened Species and Designating Critical Habitat
  
• Endangered and Threatened Species: Interagency Cooperation
  
• Endangered and Threatened Species: Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants
  
• Endangered and Threatened Species: Critical Habitat​

“The proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act could have devastating consequences for listed species by weakening federal protections,” said Amber Wiewel, of Hawk Mountain Sanctuary and Pennsylvania’s Bird Atlas Coordinator. “These changes will create loopholes that industry groups would use to their advantage to prioritize development and other economic factors at the expense of some of our most vulnerable plants and animals.”