EPCAMR would like to welcome Roxanne Li, who is residing in Kingston, PA at the moment, completing her AmeriCorps Community Service Program in our area.
Roxanne Li came to the Wyoming Valley from Texas, for an AmeriCorps position in April of this year and will be around February of 2014. She currently works with the Commission on Economic Opportunity (CEO) as an Energy Educator through the National Center for Appropriate Technologies (NCAT) to deliver in-home energy educations to recipients of weatherization services from the Weatherization Assistance Program. Roxanne has a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Engineering from Cornell University, a Minor in Sustainable Energy Systems, and previously worked as an intern for an environmental consulting company in Johannesburg, South Africa. She is also an NCEES Engineer in Training (EIT) in the State of New York.
Roxanne has requested to work with EPCAMR twice a week for a few hours a day to volunteer her time assisting us with some of our environmental field work, given her background in Environmental Engineering. Initially, she has already worked on updating EPCAMR’s Vendor File that allows us to receive our tax exemption from State and Federal taxes on all our purchases and work projects due to our recognition as a 501 (c)(3), public, charitable, educational, non-profit organization. She has also assisted EPCAMR in the field by photographing and working with the Executive Director, Robert Hughes, to count tires and take pre-restoration conditions at the Nockley’s Tributary Cleanup and Stream Restoration and Habitat Improvement Project, in Hanover Township, just along the Wilkes-Barre City line. She is also currently being trained as an EPCAMR Water Quality Stream Monitor to obtain a Certificate of Training from EPCAMR Staff so that she can independently go out and monitor stream sections that EPCAMR is interested in finding out more data on from a water quality, water quantity (flow), and habitat assessment criteria perspective. On her first outing with EPCAMR’s Executive Director, at the end of the training, she was very excited to find a rather large red-eared slider turtle basking just upstream of our monitoring point on Solomon Creek.
Roxanne Li, EPCAMR Water Quality Monitoring Volunteer, holding a red-eared slider turtle on Solomon Creek
She had never seen bright orange streams impacted by abandoned mine drainage before coming to Wilkes-Barre. “I’m very excited to be a part of the efforts to restore these streams to a more natural state with EPCAMR”, she emphatically stated. She is also certified as a rescue diver. Robert goes on to jokingly state, “Knowing that she’s certified in rescue diving could come in handy if I ever get into mine drainage and iron oxide over my head one day while out sampling and collecting our iron oxide from treatment ponds for our recovery efforts. I never know when I’m going to need another hand to pull me out of this dirty job!”
EPCAMR welcomes Roxanne Li to the Anthracite Coal Region of Northeastern PA!
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