March 19, 2012
Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster New Era
The woman who made environmental history by wading in the polluted Conestoga River
By Ad Crable
In the summer of 1948, Dr. Ruth Patrick, an upstart female scientist from The Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, and her hand-picked crew of about a dozen descended on Lancaster County.
During the next three months of summer heat, they waded and scooped up plants, fish and microscopic algae from the Conestoga River — then called Conestoga Creek — and eight of its tributaries....
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