Rebecca Lindner began her stay in the NEPA region in June 2013. Born and raised in South Georgia, she loves the outdoors and takes her responsibilities as a stewardess of our planet pretty seriously. She graduated from the University of Georgia with a Bachelor’s in Environmental Chemistry in May 2012. While in school she collaborated with her colleagues to run Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP) analyses to determine possible contaminants in the Bio-conversion runoff pond. She also completed an internship with Dr. Aaron Thompson, at the University, involving carbon dioxide production in soil due to microbial processes in anoxic versus oxic environments. She became certified as a Quality Assurance/Quality Control (QA/QC) volunteer with the Adopt-A-Stream program in the Atlanta area and led groups of volunteers to collect data on streams around Athens, GA.
Becca Lindner, EPCAMR Volunteer, scanning some EPCAMR documents to create our historic digital archive
After hearing about EPCAMR through VolunteerMatch, Becca became interested in assisting this small, yet efficient, organization that was committed to reclaiming abandoned mine lands and restoring streams impacted by abandoned mine drainage. After her first meeting with the group cleaning out Nockley’s Tributary, a feeder stream to Solomon’s Creek, she was assured that she wanted to continue to work with us. She is inspired by their commitment to the communities in which they work and their creative ideas for outreach, such as the “AMD Avengers Activity Book” and the iron oxide pigment reprocessing, artistic products that they are creating out of the pigment, and the sustainable recycling efforts of the organization. Her responsibilities will involve a variety of project; including administrative tasks, as well as joining the EPCAMR Staff and interns on field opportunities where she can learn more about AMD, non-point source pollution, and abandoned mine reclamation.
“Water is one of our most precious natural resources. It’s important to protect and monitor this resource in order to preserve a healthy environment. I look forward to working with EPCAMR and its affiliates to clean up our rivers and educate others to prevent further non-point source pollution from affecting our waterways. I can’t wait to learn more about everything from water monitoring, to landscaping, to photography. I think it’s wonderful how EPCAMR has incorporated so much into their program!” said the excited and enthusiastic Southern young lady.
Robert E. Hughes, EPCAMR Executive Director, says “We look forward to helping Becca gain some valuable hands-on experience with our organization. She did a great job in getting her hands dirty in the heat and humidity, last week during our Nockley’s Tributary cleanup in the Solomon Creek watershed, just outside of Wilkes-Barre, and already she has jumped right in and has been trained by Mel Talmadge, our Volunteer Services Coordinator, on some scanning of paper copy documents that we would like to have digitally archived, to document our history and past work projects. She’s going to work out just fine. She has an interest in nature photography, so we’re going to let her explore that passion, and utilize our work camera to catch us in action in the field and get used to our field equipment so that she can become familiar with our tools of the trade. It’s only fair that we share with her some Northern Coal Region hospitality, that probably won’t match the Southern hospitality she has been providing to us already!”
You must be logged in to post a comment.