EPCAMR’s grant coordination will be conducted in the Fall of 2020 with students from the Wilkes-Barre Area School District as we continue to work with Mike Corcoran, who has been a long-time partner with EPCAMR on many grants over the last few decades.  Mike will help to decide which classes can participate in the grant in the Elementary School System.

“This grant will help us build stewardship for our watersheds in our local youth and their families. We recognize that children are our future leaders, so it is crucial to teach them about local environmental issues and help them understand they have the power to directly help,” says Environmental Educator at EPCAMR, Laura Rinehimer, who is leading the project. EPCAMR Program Manager Michael Hewitt added, “It’s important for kids to understand what they do. Their habits can greatly impact our environment and society, in general. If we learn good habits early, it’s not so hard for us to change them later.” 

The original grant, which consisted of students going on an interactive field trip and leading their own action project, needed to be changed due to Covid-19. Instead of being able to physically take students to locations in our watersheds, EPCAMR will be creating boxed kits to send to the students with everything they need for a virtual tour. Accompanying videos will be created to allow students to “visit” the locations from the safety of their homes. These boxes include an informative guided nature journal, an original board game created by EPCAMR staff, and other materials to complete science exploration activities. Laura Rinehimer stated, “We want the kits to be a hands-on way for children to have fun exploring and learning about their local environment so that they can fall in love with nature in their own communities and feel empowered to protect it.”

Students from the Bear Creek Charter School learning about how to identify macroinvertebrates with EPCAMR.

The kits will teach children about the different types of pollution impacting our watersheds, emphasizing abandoned mine discharge (AMD) leading to iron oxide deposits in our water. This is harmful to aquatic life, coating the gills of small fish, inadvertent drinking of the polluted mine water by small animals, reducing light needed for photosynthesis in aquatic plants and algae, and leading to sediment buildup which smothers food sources and spawning beds. The emphasis, however, will be about the solutions to our environmental problems. Michael Hewitt stated, “We find it important to treat mine drainage and other nonpoint source pollution at its source in the headwater tributaries to limit the impacts of dead zones and sediment downstream and eventually to the Chesapeake Bay.”

EPCAMR Executive Director Bobby Hughes with some excited and enthused fellow students from the Heights Murray Elementary School in the Wilkes-Barre Area School District at an outdoor Environmental Education Program at Francis Slocum State Park.

Students will learn about active and passive treatment systems used to reduce the AMD entering our waterways. They will also learn about ways to directly help keep our waters clean, such as protecting and planting riparian buffer zones, conducting streamside cleanups, and making their voices heard in future environmental litigation. Cleanup materials will be included in the kits so that students can make a difference in their own communities. Families are encouraged to send footage of litter cleanups so that EPCAMR can compile them into one video showing the powerful synergistic impact of many people making small positive changes.

Students on an AMD Tour to the Audenreid AMD Treatment System in the Catawissa Creek Watershed.

Executive Director of EPCAMR, Bobby Hughes said, “EPCAMR teaches area youth that their local neighborhoods are a part of nature and the environment when they don’t often see “outside” as a part of their watershed address. We do our best to give them our place-based education philosophy. Our goal is to provide them meaningful outdoor learning experiences so that they can connect with their surrounding landscapes. No matter where they live in the Wilkes-Barre Area School District they are indirectly tied to the Chesapeake Bay through the Susquehanna River and its headwater tributaries.” 

Contact Laura Rinehimer, EPCAMR Environmental Educator for project details @ 570-371-3522 or lrinehimer@epcamr.org.

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Jessica Johnson begins her first day as Watershed Outreach Intern reviewing, scanning, and cataloging historic Anthracite mine maps.

Jessica Johnson is majoring in Environmental Studies with minors in Biology and Geography. She will be receiving her Bachelor of Arts degree in May of 2015. She was born and raised in the Wyoming Valley and has lived in Nanticoke her entire life until recently moving to Scranton. Moving from a small city to a slightly larger city has been a bit of a culture shock. She’s still adjusting to the faster-paced lifestyle, as well as the larger population. All of her life she knew that she wanted to do something special that would help change the path that this planet has taken due the hands of mankind.

She remembered back in high school at Greater Nanticoke Area, saying, “I always wanted to work for a non-profit environmental organization in the area that is dedicated and passionate about their cause. Working with EPCAMR has fulfilled that dream for me. With this internship, I hope to gain a better understanding of the conditions of the land in my hometown and the surrounding areas and what is being done to improve it. I am looking forward to gaining hands-on experience in the field that will allow me to get out in the community and contribute to protecting and restoring the environmental landscapes that have been mining-impacted in our region. I am especially interested in seeing, first hand, the effects coal mining has had on Northeastern PA and getting to visit abandoned mine lands, rivers, and streams that have been impaired by abandoned mine drainage to get an up and close physical understanding of what past mining has done to our rivers, streams, and land.”

When not in classes, Jessica enjoys being outdoors any chance she can get. Her favorite Spring/Summer activity is exploring 7 Tubs Nature Area, which has just recently become a part of the PA Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Bureau of Forestry, Lackawanna State Parks Complex, after having been under the ownership of Luzerne County for years, with little improvements to the land. Two years ago, EPCAMR led a group of volunteers to clean up the Nature Area. Jessica likes to get lost deep in the woods and try to find her way out using what she’s learned in her Botany and Geography courses.

During her 2013 Fall semester,  her class took a week-long trip to the Chesapeake Bay, hosted by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. It was a great experience where she learned about some of the damaging effects the Susquehanna River has on the Bay and that our mining-impacted areas do play a role in some of the pollution downstream.

Jessica dropping a trap in the Chesapeake Bay as a part of her Fall 2013 field course experience

“It made me realize what an impact our area had on others around it, even as far away as Maryland and Virginia. This is even more of a reason for us to do our best to improve the communities in which we live and what we have, to make a better future for generations to come,” she proudly emphasized.

Amanda Hamstra, EPCAMR Watershed Outreach Intern 

Amanda Hamstra currently lives in West Pittston, PA. She is a Senior at King’s College with a major in Environmental Studies and a minor in Professional Writing. She will be graduating in May of 2015. She enjoys writing, reading, and any outdoor activities, especially camping. She hopes to obtain a career where she can be outdoors to help preserve forests and wildlife and teach others the importance of nature. She also hopes to publish novels and scientific articles one day.

She heard about EPCAMR through King’s Career Planning Office. We’ve sponsored many interns from King’s College over the years. Amanda learned about abandoned mine drainage through courses she had taken and it sounded interesting to her, so she decided to contact Mr. Hughes to set up an interview. Amanda and Jessica were in many of the same classes and both went on the Chesapeake Bay outdoor field experience in the Fall of 2013.

Amanda goes on to say, “I expect to broaden my knowledge about AMD, water pollution, mine land reclamation, and environmental education and to learn how EPCAMR is making a true difference on the negative impacts to the environment with positive solutions. The field work should give me a better understanding about the impacts of AMD and help me network to learn more about the efforts of EPCAMR and other environmental organizations in NEPA.”

Robert Hughes, EPCAMR Executive Director, goes on to say, “Jessica and Amanda will have a very busy semester this coming Spring before they graduate in May. They are joining EPCAMR when we will be in full swing with a variety of projects. As all interns have done before them, they will have the opportunity to dive right in and get their hands dirty in AMD and immerse themselves in as much of the workload to gain the most experience out of the internship. I stressed to them on the first day the importance of paying attention to details, learning the acronyms that are constantly affiliated with the community groups, government agencies, and authorities we work with, picking up on skill sets, learning how to write technical documents, and learning how EPCAMR Staff develops budgets and partnerships to put together our restoration and remediation projects throughout the region. It’s my hope that they take the initiative to truly understand just how much effort a group like EPCAMR has to go through to get a project successfully on the ground and funded and what it takes to develop those relationships with people from our coalfield communities throughout Northeastern and North Central PA in the name of clean water and for the protection, preservation, and reclamation of our land and water, impacted by past mining practices.”

The post EPCAMR welcomes our Spring 2015 Watershed Outreach Interns from King’s College, Jessica Johnson and Amanda Hamstra appeared first on epcamr.org.

Resolution Recognizes Significance of Clean Water in the Keystone State

(HARRISBURG) – The Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) applauds the Wyoming County Commissioners for adopting a Clean Water Countsresolution, calling on state officials to make clean water a top priority for the Keystone State.

Wyoming County Commissioners are the first to officially join the statewide effort lead by CBF, by passing a resolution. CBF embarked on the Clean Water Counts campaign in response to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) most recent statewide assessment of the health of surface waters, which reported that nearly 20,000 miles of rivers and streams that we rely on for drinking and household uses, recreation, and to grow our food, are polluted.

Bowman’s Creek, outside of Tunkhannock, PA Wyoming Cty

Through public education and engagement, the resolution campaign CBF urges officials to make clean water a priority and to commit the needed funding and programs to ensure that all 83,000 miles of waterways in the state are clean.

DEP’s survey results conclude that agricultural activities pollute the greatest miles of waterways followed by the legacy of coal mining and impacts from abandoned mine drainage, as well as polluted runoff, or stormwater, from our urban and suburban communities, including roads.

“Healthy families, strong communities, and a thriving Pennsylvania economy depend on clean water,” said Harry Campbell, CBF’s Pennsylvania Executive Director. “We applaud and thank the Commissioners of Wyoming County for publicly voicing their support for clean water for the Keystone State.”

In addition to calling on local officials to pass resolutions, CBF is also asking something of citizens.

“We’re asking all Pennsylvania residents to show their support for clean water by signing the Clean Water Counts online petition,” said Campbell. “It takes only a few minutes, but it goes a long way toward demonstrating the importance of clean water to our elected officials.” EPCAMR Executive Director, Robert Hughes, urges all County Commissioners and Home Rule County Councils to do the same, particularly in our Anthracite Coal Region, where a majority of our streams are impacted by AMD.

Online petition signatures will be accepted through October 18^th, the anniversary of the Clean Water Act. To learn more about the campaign go to cbf.org/PAForCleanWater.

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