Good food, good fellowship, and good work were celebrated at the March 11 annual banquet of the Sewickley Creek Watershed Association. Held at the New Stanton Fire Hall, more than 260 people turned out despite the heavy rain, setting a new attendance record.
Two videos were shown about active SCWA projects with partners. One video highlighted work at Lynch Field. It was written, produced, and filmed by students from Greensburg Salem Middle School, whose classmates participate in a variety of projects through the Lynch Field Partnership.
Knowing which streams are affected by mine discharges can be easy to discover&emdash;just look for orange-stained water. Knowing how to clean them up is not as easy to determine. If you've attended the monthly meetings of the Sewickley Creek Watershed Association or read the newsletter, you know that cleaning up mine drainage can be a trial-and-error process.
SCWA now has a helpful tool at its disposal thanks to a joint grant from the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the Environmental System Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI). The association applied for and was awarded the latest commercial release of ESRI's ArcView Geographic Information System. With the geographic information system software, SCWA will be able to analyze discharge situations, project the impact of different factors affecting the discharges, locate them on a map, and print out that map.
SCWA board member Jim Pillsbury would like to see physically challenged people streamside, fishing and enjoying being by the water, especially at the Lynch Field recreation center. This project involves putting in a gentle grade so that physically challenged individuals can get to the water.
In the meantime, there are experimental bank stabilization projects underway to make sure there is a streamside for people to enjoy. The material tried most recently along Jack's Run is a product called GeoWeb™. It was installed last fall along the bank upstream of the bridge to the Veterans Memorial Swimming Pool at Lynch Field.
Pennsylvania's Growing Greener Grant Program is awarding a $50,000 grant to Sewickley Creek Watershed Association for removal of iron sludge from the Lowber mine discharge site near the mouth of Sewickley Creek. The goal is to see if the iron sludge can be marketed as a pigment.
This sludge is a deposit of iron oxide that has settled out of the water discharging from the old Marchand Mine near Lowber. The grant will be funding research to determine if the iron oxide can be recovered, processed, and used for products containing iron oxide.
Newsletter editor Lara Hall Blosser has been joined by Caroline Kalich, a new member of the Sewickley Creek Watershed Association who is assisting as a reporter.
The Department of Conservation and Natural Resoures (DCNR) recently announced that the SCWA will receive an $85,000 grant to help develop a rivers conservation plan. The grant will enable the SCWA to prepare a comprehensive rivers-conservation plan for the Sewickley Creek Watershed, a tributary of the Youghiogheny River.
The SCWA's project goals involve natural, physical, economic, historical and cultural resource issues as they relate to conservation of natural resources and the impacts thereon. The project's emphasis will be on the natural (soil forest and water quality) resources and physical (wastewater/stormwater discharges and sedimentation) resources of the watershed and how to implement improvements to these resources while considering socio-economic impacts.
Trout season 2000 kicked off April 15, a beautiful warm, sunny day that is a fisherman's dream.
For the fifth consecutive year, Sewickley Creek Watershed enabled local trout fishermen to cast their lines close to home by maintaining land owner consent to fish the Sewickley Creek from their respective properties. And more importantly, SCWA worked with the Pennsylvania Fish Commission to again thoroughly stock the three miles of stream.
Two SCWA members are prepared to share with school, community, or fraternal groups what the Sewickley Creek Watershed Association is about. Tom Keller, executive director, and member Mark Ferlin recently gave their first presentation to a group in West Newton.
Keller provides the informational segment of the talk as he focuses on what the SCWA is, the variety of projects it has done, where it is going with projects, funding sources, and how people can get involved.
As the Sewickley Creek Watershed Association acquires ground at mine drainage sites to facilitate the installation of remediation measures, a side benefit is developing, notes association board member Bob Hepler.
The 100 some acres that have been acquired are also home to a variety of wildlife. "We are definitely seeing a wildlife preserve developing," says Hepler.
As such the Association shall use its resources to educate the citizens of the watershed as to sound environmental practices. In addition, the Association will seek out and cooperate with government agencies, interested organizations, businesses and individuals to implement programs to improve water quality and encourage proper land use.