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.
The DEP noted that the ArcView software "enables people to solve environmental problems by uncovering and analyzing trends and patterns from geographic information." Grants were limited to schools and nonprofit organizations with a conservation-environmental curriculum or mission.
The jointly sponsored grant included two days of training. SCWA Executive Director Tom Keller and SCWA board member Mark Killar attended the February 2000 session at Penn State University's main campus in State College, Pa.
Keller explained that ArcView's mapping capabilities can be used to show mine water discharges and provide directions to discharge sites. The database can include information such as who owns the property and who to contact to study the site.
Data from joint projects with other groups could also be entered into the database. For example, Keller and Jack Driscoll, executive director of Pa. Cleanways, have discussed including previous trash and stream cleanups and potential cleanup sites as one layer of information which could be printed on a map of the watershed.
"Environmental information in the database means we can generate a map indicating clean streams, impacted streams, degraded lands as well as state parks and other features," said Killar. One could frame questions, he explained, to discover relationships such as how many acres of degraded land there are in a particular stream watershed, how many acres there are in abandoned mine lands, or how many people are located within the area of a planned project.
"The real power of ArcView is in setting it up to do modeling, to analyze situations you are looking at and to study effects," Killar said.
ArcView helps plan remediation efforts. This means better water quality through geography.
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.