Katie has a background in researching Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) opportunities for students when she had a previous internship with Seaside Sustainability, Gloucester, MA remotely and worked on various projects with other interns and was a Project Manager for a marine trash collector called “Seabin”, mentioned Bobby Hughes, EPCAMR Executive Director. “EPCAMR is heavily involved in STEM and STEAM….where the “A” is for “Art”, because of our use of iron oxide pigment from AMD. Her familiarity with coastal cleanups will be helpful since we do a lot of inland freshwater cleanups and illegal dumpsite cleanups on abandoned mine lands and both our pristine trout water ecosystems and our AMD impacted waterways. The majority of our work is completed in the Chesapeake Bay Watershsed”, he stated enthusiastically. 

Katie was a part of a Committee Team with the National Model United Nations (NMUN), in New York City, New York in both March of 2018 and again in April of 2020, where she became a Committee member of the United Nations Environmental Assembly (UNEA) and a lead delegate. The Environment Assembly embodies a new era in which the environment is at the center of the international community’s focus and is given the same level of prominence as issues such as peace, poverty, health, and security. She developed skills in the facilitation of debate, conflict resolution, and customer service while learning alongside delegates about emerging global issues. Her Committee set the agenda to discuss environmental topics followed by resolution writing. She also had the chance to attend a conference to debate energy topics at the National Model United Nations, Efurt, Germany in the Fall of 2019.

“I’ve always loved the environment and had a passion for it ever since I was little. I enjoy hiking and being out in nature. My mother and I love to kayak during the Summer and Fall months of the year. As I got older and understood the destruction happening to the environment, I developed a strong determination for preserving it. When it came to choosing a major for college, I had no doubt in my mind that getting a degree in the environmental field would be the right choice for me,”, Katie mentioned with a passion.

“During my first years at King’s College, I was really interested in environmental policy and law, but as the years progressed, my path changed direction. Every year, for about a week, the Environmental Department at King’s College takes a trip to the Chesapeake Bay for a class. I must say, that trip changed my entire career path. We learned so much about the Bay, as well as, many aquatic animals native to it, and experienced so many wonderful things. I learned a lot about the health of the Chesapeake Bay, blue crabs, oyster farming and so much more. I really opened up and my inner environmentalist came out on that trip because I had done things that I had never done before,” reflected Katie.

Katie Van Orden is holding a Diamondback Terrapin that she caught while crab scraping the underwater grass in the Chesapeake Bay.

“I want to make change happen, not by policy and law, but by being out in the field…out with nature. Ever since the Chesapeake Bay trip, my focus in the environment has been wetlands and water quality. I have such a passion to learn about the most diverse ecosystems in the world”, Katie proclaimed.

Katie will be putting in 10-15 hours a week through the Federal Work-Study Program to intern with EPCAMR and work on some of our upcoming projects including several cleanups such as Centralia, local cleanups in the region we’ve planned for the Fall, aquatic organism passage (AOP) culvert assessments for our NFWF Small Watershed Grant along the eastern flank of the Southern Wyoming Valley watersheds (Solomon Creek, Warrior Creek, Nanticoke Creek, and Newport Creek). She has already completed her on-line AOP Protocol Training and will be shadowed by the EPCAMR Executive Director in the field to obtain her 20 culverts she needs to assess to become a certified Lead Observer under the NAACC. She will be doing some AMD sampling and macro-invertebrate sampling as well. We will get her involved in some of our Environmental Education programming too with our lead Environmental Education Coordinator, Laura Rinehimer.

“I would love to gain the experience of evaluating and sampling streams and rivers, as well as, increasing my knowledge of water quality and Abandoned Mine Drainage (AMD) around NEPA. During my internship at EPCAMR, I hope to collaborate with some amazing people on several projects and accomplish my goals of learning more about water quality testing and AMD,” Katie stated with enthusiasm.

“It’s a small world,” EPCAMR’s Executive Director stated. ” Katie’s father, Clark Van Orden, is a local photographer who has been coming along and capturing hundreds of projects, programs, activities, and our environmental actions over the years and is a great colleague of mine. I made sure to let Katie know to tell her Dad that I said hello once she got home after the interview and was selected for an internship with EPCAMR,” Bobby Hughes, stated with a smile.

The post EPCAMR Brings on Katie Van Orden as a Part-time King’s College Federal Work-Study Intern for the Fall 2020 to Assist with a Multitude of Projects appeared first on epcamr.org.

Joshua Rinehimer hiking the trails at PA DCNR’s World’s End State Park in Sullivan County.

Josh grew up in northeast Pennsylvania spending most of his youth in the woods helping his father, who worked as a logger.  This is where he developed his passion for environmental conservation.  He is married to his wife Elizabeth, has two sons, Elias and Silas, and expecting a third child in December, and they all love the outdoors as much as he does.  When not working, Josh likes to spend most of his time with his family, but he also likes to go hunting, hiking, camping, fishing, and playing guitar.

“Being an Environmental Geoscience concentration, I really hope to see how the physical geology of the mining impacted region effects the way abandoned mine drainage (AMD) flows through the Wyoming Valley and other coalfield communities.”  “I have learned about the effects of AMD in class, but now I get to see and help in the reclamation of these polluted areas under the leadership and guidance of the EPCAMR Staff and Mr. Hughes.”  “It means a lot to me, not only as a student, but also as a local Pennsylvanian, the work that EPCAMR has been doing in this area for more than two decades.”  “The steps we take today ensure a better, cleaner Earth for my children’s generation are what it’s all about.” emphasized Josh.

Robert E. Hughes, stated, “We’re glad to bring Josh on for the next 6 weeks to help us out over the Summer with many of our projects and programs. It never seems to slow down anymore in the Office and around the region with the amount of work, technical assistance, grant management, project management, and environmental education programs that we undertake within the communities that we serve. It’s always nice to have a few extra hands around to pick up on the work that we are doing and for him as an Intern to acquire the necessary skills and training in the field of watershed restoration, wildlife and aquatic habitat improvement, and environmental education and outreach. He’s come at a very busy time of the year, so I assured him that daily he will be going from one end of the environmental spectrum to the other helping us to juggle and manage the dozens of projects that we have going on throughout the Coalfields of Northeastern and Northcentral PA.”

“Josh has already helped to process iron oxide, sample iron oxide precipitate in the bottom of Earth Conservancy’s Askam AMD Maelstrom Oxidizer Treatment system that we monitor and maintain for them, assisted with a bi-county AMD and Abandoned Mine Lands tour of undergraduate and graduate Landscape Architecture students from the University of Oregon, inspected our Solomon Creek Trout Stream Dam Removal and Habitat Improvement Construction Project in Ashley Borough, Luzerne County, and is actively taking an online training and certification course in Aquatic Organism Passage (AOP) that most EPCAMR Staff have already through the North Atlantic Aquatic Connectivity Collaborative (NAACC), in partnership with Trout Unlimited, under the leadership of Phil Thomas, Habitat Coordinator for the PA Coldwater Habitat Restoration Program. The NAACC has developed common protocols and training for assessing road-stream crossings (culverts and bridges) and developed a regional database for this field data. The information collected will be used to identify high priority bridges and culverts for upgrade and replacement. Next week, he’ll be planting Waterboxxes and conducting a cleanup in Plainsville with incoming Wilkes University students as a service learning project,  tie-dying t-shirts with Science, Technology, Engineering, & Math (STEM) students in the Wilkes-Barre Area School District’s STEM Youth Camp for 1ST through 5th grade at Kistler Elementary in Wilkes-Barre, PA, taking Hazleton area-youth fishing at Lake Irena in Hazleton, PA, and assisting with another AMD Tour with Penn-State Master Watershed Stewards at our Office. I’d say he’s going to be learning lots about EPCAMR and how much work we REALLY do around the region in the next few weeks. I think he’s up for the challenge!” laughed, Robert.

The post EPCAMR Welcomes Joshua Rinehimer, Bloomsburg University Senior as a 6-week Summer Watershed Outreach Intern appeared first on epcamr.org.