Celia Llopis-Jepsen
Celia comes to the Kansas News Service after five years at the Topeka Capital-Journal. She brings in-depth experience covering schools and education policy in Kansas as well as news at the Statehouse. In the last year she has been diving into data reporting. At the Kansas News Service she will also be producing more radio, a medium she’s been yearning to return to since graduating from Columbia University with a master’s in journalism.
Celia also has a master’s degree in bilingualism studies from Stockholm University in Sweden. Before she landed in Kansas, Celia worked as a reporter for The American Lawyer in New York, translated Chinese law articles, and was a reporter and copy editor for the Taipei Times.
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The Keystone was built with extra safety measures, yet it split open under run-of-the-mill pressure levels that less rigorously designed pipelines regularly withstand.
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Across the Midwest, some city codes threaten people with fines for having milkweed on their property. But experts say many places have dropped those rules to support monarchs with urban and suburban butterfly gardens.
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Regulators want to know the risks that flawed welding or shifting ground could pose for more breaks on the Keystone, which has spilled repeatedly since 2011.
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Kansas has nearly 4,000 turbines, many taller than the Statue of Liberty. People see blinking lights for miles, but now radars can help preserve the night skies.
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Trucks are hauling oil-drenched soil to a landfill near Omaha. Crews are building a five-acre pond to continue treating contaminated water.
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The Keystone is Washington County's biggest source of property taxes for schools and other local government, but the company didn't pay for 10 years
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Hundreds of workers have been hustling around the clock to recover the oil. Some landowners want more information about the cleanup and about why the pipeline broke.
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Scientists in Kansas and Iowa are working on a greener path forward. In the meantime, experts offer tips for public agencies and homeowners to use salt smarter.
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Two pipelines, including the Keystone that ruptured on Dec. 7, are the most important local sources of tax revenue for Washington County
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Crews in north-central Kansas continue to remove oil from several miles of Mill Creek that are now blocked off from the rest of the creek. Contamination downstream is decreasing.