Environment

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says a tiny fish named after an Indiana river doesn’t need federal protection. In fact, the Tippecanoe darter’s numbers might be growing.

The agency completed a scientific review of the species after environmental groups wanted it listed under the Endangered Species Act.

From the facilities that sanitize sewage to the pipes that deliver drinking water, Indiana needs billions of dollars in urgent water infrastructure repairs. Some of that infrastructure is more than a century old.

According to Sen. Ed Charbonneau (R-Valparaiso), Indiana was wooden pipes, lead pipes, pipes that have been in the ground for 140 years.

“The best of the best utilities are on a replacement cycle of something like 140 years,” he says.

A leading Indiana environmental organization won’t endorse in the gubernatorial race because it doesn’t have “enthusiastic support” for plans put forward by either Republican Eric Holcomb or Democrat John Gregg.

Steve Francis is the political chair of the Hoosier chapter of the Sierra Club. He says Indiana’s environmental issues – for instance, its reliance on coal and health issues created by poor air quality – have been ignored by the current administration.

Voluntary conservation farming practices are measurably decreasing nutrient pollution in the Mississippi River Basin, and this good news: from the Midwest, all the way down the Mississippi River in the Gulf of Mexico. As Indiana Public Broadcasting’s Nick Janzen reports, the Indiana trend in conservation is reducing the pollution that creates harmful algae blooms and the gulf’s dead zone.

The Indianapolis Zoo, as part of the dolphin exhibit, has a video of dolphins swimming in the Gulf of Mexico. They’re swimming near a boat, pushing air through their blowholes.

In a university town, September usually means one thing: college football. But there’s another sport at Purdue you probably won’t catch on the Big 10 Network. Every fall, arborists from across the country immerse themselves in the world of competitive tree climbing.

Yes, it’s an actual thing. The winner of Indiana’s championship gets a lot of aboriculture swag – a fancy water bottle and a handsaw is included in the prize package – and a chance to compete at the international tree climbing finals next spring.

Think about the last delicate package you received. When you opened the box, there’s a good chance it was also full of packing peanuts – huge numbers of which go to landfills each year.

But Purdue researcher Vilas Pol sees another use for the ubiquitous packing material. He envisions a time where instead of decomposing, the packing peanuts are helping to power electrical devices.

Hydraulic fracturing -- fracking, for short -- has been an economic boon to such states as North Dakota. It's produced never-before-seen wealth in the form of the gas and oil released from rocks deep underground.

A new report from Purdue agricultural economists Wally Tyner and Farzad Taheripour estimates the industry could create as much as $300 billion in wealth for Americans every year through at least 2035.