Cat Pugh and Erin Trouba, educators with the Penn State Extension office, presented to nearly 50 people aboard the Hiawatha Paddleboat on Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025, about riparian buffers and various plant species that can be used successfully in those environments for a Floating Classroom program hosted by the Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association.

Trouba led the lower-level discussion on riparian buffers overview, their importance and had people check out the riverside to compare different buffers during the boat ride. Upstairs, Pugh shared a wide variety of different species that can be used to plant in buffer zones, including edible plants, those that can be used for weaving and other crafts and more. 

​​It only takes a few seconds to ask ChatGPT to map out the best places to stop for tacos on your family’s next road trip, create a new song for the playlist during the drive or suggest the best birthday gift option for your Aunt Myrtle before you arrive at her house and where you can pick it up while avoiding rush-hour traffic.

However, each request of the artificial intelligence generated model can consume some noticeable real-life natural resources, according to Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC) Executive Director Andrew Dehoff.

“If you haven’t heard the recent quip or statistic, one question to ChatGPT can consume upwards of one standard 16-ounce bottle of water,” he said.
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Which can pose a real concern for the multi-state agency that monitors and permits water withdrawal requests within the greater Susquehanna River watershed, especially as mega-companies such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft propose hyperscale data centers within the basin.

Riverkeeper's note: Check out the initial coverage of this story from Tuesday's visit to the site here as well as our follow-up to the spill site here.​

On Aug. 1, 2025, the Department of Environmental Protection inspected the Eureka Resources facility on Second Street in Williamsport and found several notable violations, including a lack of high-level alarms on a majority of the tanks the company uses to store fracking wastewater – including Tank N3.

On Aug. 7, the agency issued an official notice of violation for these infractions, which also included storage of waste for more than a year (Eureka’s records indicated approximately 1,378,897 gallons of oil and gas liquid waste has been stored at the site since July 1, 2024) and lack of sufficient freeboard on Tank B8. Freeboard is the portion of a tank not used to store liquids.

Just 10 days later, a pair of fishermen noticed an oily black ooze coming from the Hepburn Street pump house into the Susquehanna River and reported it – sparking an investigation that led officials to its source: a corroded fitting about 3 to 4 feet above the ground on Tank N3 at the Eureka Resources facility. The leak released an estimated 16,000 gallons of oil-based wastewater – half of which made it past the secondary containment into the building and some of that worked its way into storm drains, nearby Grafius Run and eventually the river.

This all is per an official Order by the DEP against Eureka Resources dated Aug. 19, 2025, and can be read in full here.

Families, friends and even teammates from one of the Little League World Series teams (Carribean) learned about wildlife scat and the important ecological role it plays both locally and abroad, what happens when there is too much poop in our ecosystem and enjoyed a hands-on activity on learning clues to identifying wildlife from the scat it leaves behind during the Aug. 19 Floating Classroom aboard the Hiawatha Paddleboat near Williamsport.

The program included an overview on the lower level inspired by the new youth educational book Scat: The Incredible Science of Wildlife Poop by Anita Sanchez. Led by Riverkeeper John Zaktansky, participants discussed differences in digestive systems, answering trivia about poop-related vocabulary and delved into some unique case studies on how animal poop has played key ecological roles.

This included the blue whale-krill-phytoplankton relationship where blue whale waste helps feed phytoplankton, how earthworms are used to revitalize fields that are lacking resources, fruit bats were used to reseed forests in southeast Mexico devastated by wildfires and other poop-related success stories. The group then looked at the issues caused by too much waste, nutrient overload and algae blooms and how that can negatively impact an ecosystem. 

As of Tuesday afternoon, Aug. 19, 2025, residue from an oil spill reported Sunday evening, Aug. 17, by two fishermen on the Susquehanna River's West Branch just below the Williamsport dam, was still visible along the river's edge and in various coves and eddies.

"While various groups responding to the situation have not declared any sort of public health concern, I think it is smart to avoid using the river from below the Williamsport dam to at least Greevy's Boat Launch, if not the town of Montgomery," said Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper John Zaktansky. "With the lower water table, it is easy for pockets of this oily wastewater to pool up in eddies and not really flush downstream and we don't really know for sure what all was in the fluid that leaked from the Eureka facility. It is best to play it safe until more information is available."

According to a statement released by the regional Department of Environmental Protection, the agency responded to the spill Sunday, tracing it to its source of an aboveground storage tank at the Eureka Resources facility on Second Street near the Hepburn Street pumping station. The spill reached a storm drain that emptied into the pumping station that goes into the river.