Kate Grumke
Senior Environmental Reporter, STLPRI report on agriculture and rural issues for Harvest Public Media and am the Senior Environmental Reporter at St. Louis Public Radio, my hometown NPR station.
I started at STLPR as an education reporter, covering late night school board meetings and tagging along on field trips. Before moving back to Missouri, I spent more than five years producing award-winning television in Washington, D.C., most recently at the PBS NewsHour. In that work I climbed to the top of a wind turbine in Iowa, helped plan the environmental section of a presidential debate and produced multiple news-documentaries on energy and the environment.
I graduated from the University of Missouri School of Journalism and hold a certificate in data journalism from Columbia University’s Lede Program.
You can reach me at kgrumke@stlpr.org or follow me on social media @kgrumke.
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The majority of St. Louis' electricity comes from coal, which emits a lot of climate-warming greenhouse gases. To meet its climate goals, Mastercard is building its own solar field next to its O'Fallon data center. -
The U.S. Department of Energy said it canceled a loan guarantee for the transmission project, which would transport wind energy generated in Kansas to Missouri and other Midwest states, because it was not a responsible use of taxpayer money. Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley had advocated for the cancellation. -
Destructive tornadoes have hit states such as Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky and Indiana this season as activity shifts east. Meanwhile, scientists say dry and hot weather in the Great Plains brought on by climate change could be slowing the number of tornadoes there. -
Ameren Missouri has disconnected more than 100,000 households that were behind on their bills in the past year. Advocates say Missouri laws need to change to better protect people in extreme heat. -
Each spring, Midwesterners head to the woods to find morel mushrooms. But some in the region are developing methods to reliably farm the delicacy. -
Missouri lawmakers are making it more difficult to take water out of the state without a permit, after raising concerns about drought and water scarcity in the west. -
AmeriCorps members were working on environmental education and habitat restoration at parks and nature centers in rural areas across the country. Now federal cuts have eliminated many of those positions. -
The Missouri legislature approved a law that would ban the sale of multiple invasive plants, including burning bush and Callery pear. The species choke out native plants and cause issues for ecosystems and landowners. -
The Labadie Energy Center and the Sioux Energy Center in Missouri will have two extra years to limit emissions of mercury and other hazardous air pollutants. -
The new Missouri law allows utilities to charge customers for power plants as they are being built, rather than after they are complete. Consumer and environmental groups say it will make utilities significantly more expensive and worsen climate change.
