Carolyn assisted with the AMD Sampling with the EPCAMR Staff in the Loyalsock Creek Watershed.

EC worked with the King’s College Office of Career Planning to offer King’s students the opportunity to apply for one of two EC Summer 2026 Scholarships. This EC scholarship allows King’s students to gain hands-on experience through an internship which aligns with EC’s mission. Furthermore, the work that students do in this internship counts for three college credits, funded by the scholarship, which helps students work towards earning their degrees. Carolyn has been selected as a recipient of the Earth Conservancy Summer 2026 Scholarship and has chosen to return to work with EPCAMR for this internship opportunity.  You can read about Carolyn’s initial time with EPCAMR in this previous news article. 

Carolyn tells us, “I’m so honored that I was selected as a recipient of this amazing scholarship! I never would have expected that such an opportunity would have been made possible for me so early in my college career. Without this internship, I would have needed to wait until the fall semester of college to return to work with EPCAMR as a Community-Based Federal Work Study student intern. I would have missed getting involved with all the sampling and monitoring that EPCAMR does throughout the summer, which I’ve really wanted to be a part of! Now, thanks to Earth Conservancy, I can focus on getting out in the field without worrying about falling behind with course work!” 

“I really like how this internship is run differently from my other college courses. There are virtually no assignments, except for updating my supervising professor, Dr. Brain Mangan, on my tasks and activities each week. Instead of me taking a midterm and final exam, Bobby has to complete a midterm and final assessment of the quality of my work. It’s more like I’m giving him homework! I’ll have to work hard so that he has only good things to say about me!” Carolyn joked. 

Carolyn organized the Holy Cross Day of Service EPCAMR AMD Tie-Dye Activity on Campus in Wilkes-Barre just before the Spring Semester came to an end with Bobby and Maria.

Carolyn mentioned, “In all seriousness, I’m very grateful to have been chosen for this opportunity. There are a lot of people who helped me secure this internship. Dr. Brian Mangan, who is the Director of the Environmental Program at King’s and my supervising professor for this internship, informed me of the opportunity and encouraged me to apply. I am so thankful for his unwavering support. The Office of Career Planning was extremely helpful in the application process, answering any and all questions I had. They were also partly responsible for deciding which students would be awarded the scholarship, so I’m grateful they chose me. EPCAMR has my gratitude for welcoming me back so soon after I finished this semester’s Community-Based Federal Work Study with them. I look forward to continuing to be a part of the EPCAMR team! And finally, a big thank you to Earth Conservancy, who proposed and funded this scholarship. This scholarship truly reflects their efforts to increase involvement in similar causes to their own.”

Carolyn attended the Schuylkill River Watershed Congress at Alvernia College in Reading to be a Room Facilitator, along with Maria, while Bobby was there to present.

Bobby stated, “Carolyn has been a valuable member of the EPCAMR team through her involvement in the Communit-Based Federal Work Study Program. It is very beneficial to us, since we often do not have the funds to create paid internships, unless grant funds are budgeted and can be allocated to support the internship positions. The students are paid through the Work Study Program, I serve as their Supervisor and Mentor, and they follow our activity description of tasks and work projects that we are currently working on during the time that they are with us. She will continue to get lots of hands-on learning and applied science activities during her internship over the next 12 weeks. This scholarship from Earth Conservancy is wonderful for her and for us. They have been a very strong advocate and supporter of our work over our entire time we’ve existed and we’ve been a part of their work in many capacities and still are. Carolyn already works very well with the rest of the Staff and our community volunteers and has already gained a lot of knowledge on the work that we do in the region to assess and restore our watersheds impacted by legacy AMD. She’s been very instrumental in helping to categorize my Google Contacts list to help EPCAMR target reaching out to vendors and partners of ours to invite them to attend our Fall 30th Anniversary Banquet and Dinner/Reception to celebrate this amazing milestone of ours. That’s no easy task with over 7000 contacts to be sorted and labeled,” Bobby joked.

Carolyn lives in Shickshinny, at the southern part of the Wyoming Valley, where we are working on completing a Coldwater Conservation Plan for the Shickshinny Creek, Rocky Run, and Paddy Run watersheds. She’s familiar with the area and is currently reaching out to the Shickshinny Historical Society and Museum’s Director, Jimmy Bach, to research any historical mine maps of the area that EPCAMR can scan and utilize in our report. Jimmy has an amazing YouTube collection on the site and his History with Jimmy videos are great! We’ve offered to scan the maps for Jim and provide them to him digitally for allowing us to borrow the maps and scan them to get them into our report and possibly into the Mine Subsidence Insurance’s (MSI) Mine Map Atlas and PA Historical Underground Mine Map Inventory System (PHUMMIS). We will be scheduling some days in June for additional stream and culvert assessments in both the Shickshinny Creek and following up with our partners in the Bowman’s Creek watershed too! Welcome back Carolyn! 

The post Carolyn M. Phillips, returns to EPCAMR, sponsored by an Earth Conservancy Summer 2026Scholarship appeared first on epcamr.org.

The Eastern PA Coalition for Abandoned Mine Reclamation (EPCAMR) is sponsoring an AmeriCorps State and National Member Volunteer, Morgan Romanowski, until September 5, 2025, through a partnership between the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation & Enforcement (OSMRE),  AmeriCorps, and the Stewards Individual Placement Program (SIPP), a Program of Conservation Legacy. We’re proud to be a national non-profit partner in Pennsylvania.

“EPCAMR is excited to have Morgan on board for this next year to assist us as a volunteer to help us out with the numerous projects we have on our plate right now. We are striving for additional funding to provide increased organizational capacity for our organization. It’s been very difficult to secure funding to support full-time employment of a number of positions with EPCAMR through grants. Ultimately, we have to manage a large number of them to keep ourselves sustainable over the long-term. We’re very humbled to have been chosen once again for this position after speaking with a colleague of ours, April Elkins-Badtke, Executive Director for Stewards Individual Placements-East, in Beckley, West Virginia.” Bobby Hughes, EPCAMR Executive Director and Morgan’s Supervisor, stated.

Back in June 2024, I had discussed with April our desire to host and sponsor a position or two if funding was available and Northeastern PA would be considered as a part of the larger Energy Community Areas in Pennsylvania. EPCAMR had worked with previously a number of years ago to support and host two other Office of Surface Mining Reclamation & Enforcement (OSMRE) AmeriCorps volunteers and an 8-week summer internship position that turned into a year-long AmeriCorps Volunteer In Service to America (VISTA) position in 2020, funded through the Foundation for PA Watersheds and the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS)  Yolande Norman, Division Chief at OSMRE, has approved the placement of two national service members at EPCAMR! We are excited to be a part of the Energy Community AmeriCorps Program (ECAP) this fall to provide capacity to communities that are working hard every day like us to make our communities more resilient and able to enjoy a much better quality of life. EPCAMR is currently recruiting for the second Community Development Coordinator VISTA position that can be found at MyAmeriCorps,” Bobby passionately stated.

As an OSMRE AmeriCorps Fellow, Morgan will follow the similar paths of many of our previous seasonal internships, except instead of 12 weeks, it will be for 52 weeks! She has the flexibility to perform any tasks that pertain to abandoned mine land (AML) mapping, water quality monitoring, environmental education, outreach, and storytelling. EPCAMR will be creating some story maps on the work that is happening around the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, AMLER funding, and more that we are working on for the OSMRE. This position can be in the field, in AMD, in streams, in the woods, on public lands, and or gathering data, creating geographic information system (GIS) maps, assisting community watershed groups, conservation groups, Conservation Districts, and EPCAMR regional partners to advance our mission or reclaiming abandoned mine lands and restoring watersheds impacted by legacy abandoned mine drainage (AMD) pollution,” Bobby explained.

Morgan was measuring the strike and dip at the headwaters of Nanticoke Creek in the rain along Holly Street just on the other side of the road heading downstream.

Morgan graduated from Wilkes University on May 18^th 2024, with a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science and a minor in Geology. She is from Scott Township, Lackawanna County, just outside the Northern Anthracite Coalfields, in the Lackawanna Valley. During her time at Wilkes, she worked on a research project with her friend Hope Mullins and senior partner, and Dr. Karimi, PhD, that involved tracking the disappearing waters on the Nanticoke creek into mine pools below the surface, entitled, Feasibility Study Using Saline Tracers And Electrical Surveying To Track Disappearing Stream Waters In Luzerne County, PA. EPCAMR and the Earth Conservancy had provided her Professor, Dr. Boback Karimi, PhD, with some some surface and underground mine maps that were useful to their project. She also interned with the Department of Environmental Protection’s Clean Water Program from summer of 2023 up until she graduated in 2024. She has plenty of experience with some of the typical field monitoring equipment that EPCAMR uses already. 

The SIPP program is sponsored by the Conservation Legacy, a nonprofit that is dedicated to funding environmental stewardship throughout America. EPCAMR is looking forward to working with Patricia “Trish” Urquiza Silva, Program Manager, for the SIPP.

EPCAMR has developed a 1-year Project Plan outlining the volunteer project goals to be worked towards during Morgan’s time of service. Some of these projects include assisting in fundraising efforts, developing various resource maps using GIS, scanning and cataloging underground mine maps, watershed assessment work, monitoring water quality within the EPCAMR region, and providing educational experiences to underserved youth, camps, and school districts in the region as funding allows.

“I am looking forward to working with EPCAMR to help provide environmentally sustainable solutions to underserved communities within the eastern Pennsylvania region impacted by abandoned mine lands, whether it be through environmental education and outreach, creating GIS maps, conducting field assessments, or writing grant proposals,” said Morgan.

Severe streambank erosion along a section of the Nanticoke Creek showing a steep, highly eroded area with tree roots exposed and extreme undercutting of the bank.

One project she looks forward to is assisting EPCAMR with the monitoring of water quality, AMD, mine pool elevations, flow loss points, and stream flows within the Nanticoke Creek watershed in partnership with the Earth Conservancy. The Nanticoke Creek experiences flow loss from water flowing into mine pools beneath the surface. EPCAMR and Earth Conservancy will be continuing to conduct monitoring of the Creek and the local mine pool to help with their $17.5 million dollar Nanticoke Creek Watershed Restoration funded by the Inflation Reduction Act and other funding sources.

Bobby Hughes, EPCAMR Executive Director, flying their DJI Mavic 2 Dual Enterprise drone upstream and over the abandoned culm banks and legacy Anthracite spoil material in the dry stream channel along Nanticoke Creek’s headwaters where the Earth Conservancy will be reclaiming the site and putting the creek back up on the surface.

“I am excited about working on this particular project because it is a continuation of the research work I completed for my senior project at Wilkes University. Í have seen firsthand how the flow loss affects the Creek and how the water is negatively impacted from its journey through the mine pools until it eventually resurfaces through the Askam Borehole where abandoned mine drainage (AMD) impacts the lower reaches of the Nanticoke Creek and where an existing AMD Maelstrom Oxidizer Treatment System is in placed operated and maintained by the Earth Conservancy and monitored by EPCAMR.

The Maelstrom Oxidizer AMD Treatment System on Nanticoke Creek along Dundee Road owned and operated by the Earth Conservancy and monitored by EPCAMR.

Askam AMD discharge into the Nanticoke Creek along Dundee Road in Hanover Township, Luzerne County, PA.

It’s used as a outdoor environmental education learning center for experiential learning opportunities and tours throughout the year. Restoration of the stream channel help to reduce the formation of AMD downstream,” said Morgan.

Brookie the Trout, one of EPCAMR’s two puppets tagged along for an AMD Tie-Dye Workshop with the Lackawanna River Conservation Association and PA American Water, at their annual Water Camp in Peckville, PA at the Valley Library.

Morgan also looks forward to participating in the various education and outreach programs that EPCAMR provides which includes, but is not limited to, tabling at community environmental events, water camps, and AMD tie-dye workshops with the trout puppets.

“I cannot stress enough the importance of environmental outreach and education within a community. By providing educational outreach programs, EPCAMR is filling a gap that most elementary schools and high schools have in their education programs when it comes to the environmental sciences. Their trout puppets and Environmental Education Streamside Hub webpage complete with videos, activities, and teacher curriculums and lesson plans is phenomenal and every teacher and environmental educator should be looking into it and using what they can in the classroom since the information that is on the site meets PA State Standards and Next Generation Science Standards. They are also spreading awareness of the issues that are caused by the abandoned mine lands that are right in people’s backyards,” said Morgan.

Morgan has already been a volunteer with EPCAMR since April of 2022 when she completed a Non-Tidal Streams Protocol Training with EPCAMR, where she learned about how to properly assess roads, bridges, pipes, culverts, and crossings for aquatic organism passage. The online training portion was in partnership with the UMass Extension, in the Center for Agriculture, Food, and Environment, University of Massachusetts Amherst, and the North Atlantic Aquatic Connectivity Collaborative (NAACC).

The top of the Falls on Little Shickshinny Creek on State Game Lands 55 not far from the parking lot along Shickshinny Valley Road where the bedding plane of the rocks across the creek create an opening before the long drop to the plunge pool below.

“This fall, Morgan will be joining some of the EPCAMR Staff in the field to conduct aquatic organism passage surveys of many of the roads, bridges, culverts, and pipes in the Little Shickshinny Creek watershed, Paddy Run, and Rocky Run tributaries on the State Game Lands 260 and 55, in the southern tip of the northern Anthracite coalfields in the former Salem Coal Company and Stackhouse Colliery area and along other publicly accessible areas where the streams and their tributaries cross over these infrastructure features to determine how passable they are for fish and aquatic life. She will survey 20 culverts in the field with the EPCAMR Staff and Bobby, who is a volunteer Lead Observer Coordinator 1 for the NAACC and she will then become certified as a Lead Observer in Aquatic Organism Passage (AOP) through NAACC. She will be very busy over the next year. These projects mentioned above are just the tip of the iceberg,” Bobby Hughes jokingly stated.

Looking downstream at the Falls on Little Shickshinny Creek on State Game Lands 55.

The post EPCAMR Welcomes and Hosts AmeriCorps State & National Member Volunteer Morgan Romanowski For A Year of Coalfield Community Service appeared first on epcamr.org.

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.

“Jessica’s background in technical writing and communications for non-profit organizations will be helpful to EPCAMR. We’re hoping to have her create some write ups on our projects that we can post to our website to give the public a better understanding of the range of work that the Staff at EPCAMR do across the Anthracite and Northern Bituminous Coal Region,” stated Robert Hughes, EPCAMR Executive Director.

Jess has interests in working in the environmental education, nonprofit, and research sectors. At her college she heads and founded the Community Garden, is the Secretary of OxFam America, and participates in a Sustainability Initiative program with a group of faculty and students. EPCAMR, having focuses on all three sectors, is the perfect place to provide her with all the necessary tools for a complete education from King’s College.

“Jessica’s experience with the Community Garden at King’s is going to be a huge compliment to our current work with our Growboxx Reclaiming Our Backyard Project with ISI, Inc., Groasis, and the Mental Insight Foundation. We will be working with the local school districts in the Wyoming Valley where we are going to be piloting the planting of community gardens with 4th grade students and their families in their neighborhood backyards. Jessica has offered to take a few of the Growboxxes and plant them in the King’s College Community Garden on Madison Street for EPCAMR with student volunteers,” mentioned Robert Hughes, EPCAMR Executive Director.

Jessica grew up in Warren County, New Jersey, spending most of her time outside exploring the Delaware River and the Appalachian Mountain region. She was raised on hiking, fishing, snowmobiling, and a constant yearn for adventure. She spent summers in the mountains of West Virginia, where she would hike, ride quads, and learn to paint. Since Jess was in the third grade, she has never been found on an adventure without a book, a journal, and a pen. She loves to read and to write and takes interest in reading and writing essays with geocentric worldviews. She also enjoys wrestling, playing lacrosse, longboarding, and attending concerts.

“Having the opportunity to begin my professional career with a nonprofit like EPCAMR makes me extremely grateful and excited for what is to come. From educating students on environmental awareness, amending the issue of Abandoned Mine Drainage (AMD), and making Pennsylvania a healthier and more sustainable place for humans and other living organisms, the importance of their work is beyond measure. This is a wonderful place to dip my toes in the water and experience what being an environmental professional is really all about,” exclaimed Jessica.

“We’ll be having Jessica help us gather background information, reports, historical maps, and resources on the Toby Creek watershed for the eventual completion of our Upper Toby Creek Coldwater Conservation Plan (CCP) in partnership with PA Council of Trout Unlimited and the Coldwater Heritage Partnership (CHP). She’ll be able to become certified during her internship as a Lead Observer for Aquatic Organism Passage to help assess culverts within the watershed and will assist with water quality and biological monitoring of tributaries and streams within the Upper Toby Creek. On her first day in the Office, she has already found nearly two dozen reference reports that she will be researching and citing to assist with the development of the Toby CCP. Should EPCAMR get funded for the Huntsville Creek CCP, another major tributary to the Upper Toby Creek, that was recently applied for, she will be able to perform similar tasks in the other portion of the watershed in the Back Mountain. She’ll be tasked with various projects to assist the EPCAMR Staff over the Winter into the early Spring that will provide her with a great experience. She’ll surely find out what it’s like to work in an environmental non-profit that has been tasked for the last two decades that have been working hard on AMD, abandoned mine land reclamation, environmental education, and stream restoration projects to restore, reclaim, and remediate our environment.” said Robert.

Jessica on the Freel Peak Tahoe Rim Trail in Nevada at 9600′ in elevation.

The post EPCAMR brings on Jessica Britten, Senior Environmental Studies Major from King’s College for Winter 2019 Internship appeared first on epcamr.org.

Llywellyn Westrick standing in an old fire tower in Adirondack Mountains, Newcomb, New York.

Lyw grew up on the west-side of the Baltimore-metro area, spending significant time outdoors playing baseball, soccer, hiking Maryland state parks, as well as periodical sailing/fishing on the Chesapeake Bay. He is one of only two members of his entire family working in the environmental field, the other being his great aunt who is an environmental lawyer out in Washington State. He is the oldest of three siblings, each of whom have an interest in environmental awareness. In his free time, Lyw enjoys hiking, watching live music, attending sporting events, and the occasional skateboard sesh.

“As an environmental studies undergraduate student who has been long concerned with the issue of water quality, I am very excited to learn more about the extent of the problem of eastern Pennsylvania Acid Mine Drainage (AMD) and how that impacts stream ecosystems, drinking water, etc.” Though I have gained foundation on the subject through my collegiate studies, I believe that EPCAMR will provide me with professional, firsthand opportunities to participate in efforts to actively address such issues.”

Robert stated, ” I think Lyw will find that he will have an excellent opportunity over these next few months as we transition from Summer to Fall and Winter activities that there will be enough activities for him to become more familiar with how an organization such as EPCAMR operates, builds community support for projects, seeks funds for grants, educates youth, and builds coalitions with our extensive network of partners across PA in the field of abandoned mine reclamation to help restore our streams impacted by AMD and to support the reclamation and redevelopment of our abandoned mine lands. I am sure that he will do well. On his first day, he has had to clean hundred year old or more mine maps from the former Franklin Brewery that is now the PA DEP Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation’s Warehouse along St. Mary’s Road in Hanover Township, along Solomon Creek, and then came back to the office to seek out donations from local grocery stores for gift cards to support the purchase of supplies and refreshments for the upcoming October 21st, 2017 Centralia Cleanup.”

The post EPCAMR Brings on Llywellyn Westrick, King’s College Senior for Fall Work Study Internship appeared first on epcamr.org.

Rachael Grube will work with EPCAMR on our GIS mapping and 3-D mine pool modeling projects. She will also develop training workshops for AmeriCorps/OSMRE and assist in monitoring water elevation of mine pools, sampling water quality of mine pools, and monitoring flow and chemistry of regional abandoned mine discharges.

Rachael, in Iceland for her senior research thesis

The GIS work Rachael will help with is mine pool mapping in the Rausch Creel watershed and at the Mocanaqua AMD Tunnel within the Susquehanna River watershed, in partnership with the Susquehanna River Basin Commission and others.

Originally from a farm in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Rachael is a 2016 graduate of Gettysburg College with a degree in Environmental Science with a minor in Studio Art. Rachael’s studies focused heavily on Earth Systems Science and GIS, giving her a solid background in the mapping and AMD work EPCAMR does. Her field experience ranges from surveying the geology of abandoned strip mines in Central Pennsylvania to collecting elevations, coordinates, and sediment samples with her professor in Northern Iceland as part of her senior research thesis. Rachael spent the summer interning for the Lackawanna County Conservation District. In her free time, she enjoys painting, running, hiking, traveling, and playing with her cat, Ralph. “I am incredibly excited to put the skills I have learned in the classroom to use in a way that can actively help to improve my community,” Rachael stated.

Abigail Keefe, born and raised in Mountain Top, Pennsylvania, has always had a love for being creative and a passion for environmental issues ever since she could remember, so you can imagine her excitement when learning about the Outreach & Education position with EPCAMR and Americorps/OSMRE. “Combining a position with communication and environmental outreach opportunities? What could be better? I’m very excited and can’t wait to help create programs and educate the community on how much of an impact elements from our historical past has on today’s local environment and society,” Abbie enthusiastically stated.  

Abigail on a hiking adventure with her boyfriend, Nick

Abbie received a Bachelor of Arts in Communication from a small social justice institution in suburban Philadelphia, Cabrini College. She dedicated her time to serving as the Managing and News Editor of the student-run newspaper, the Loquitur. She also lobbied at the nation’s capital for poverty-focused international assistance, with an emphasis on natural disasters. After graduating in May of 2016, she traveled to Arbolito, Ecuador for a service trip, where she aided in after-school programs and community activities. There, she learned first-hand about the hardships the impoverished community faced, such as the lack of clean water. Abbie’s love for animals is perpetual, as she spends most of her free time hanging out with her furry white feline, rescued pit bull, leopard gecko, among others. When she’s not home with he pets, you can assume she is hiking, kayaking, painting, eating pizza, or taking pictures.

Abbie will assist EPCAMR with our social media presence, telling stories about and taking pictures of the lands we’ve reclaimed and restored in our mining-impacted region. She will also be reviewing our marketing, branding, and recently updated Strategic Plan to see how she can build on EPCAMR’s mission and to let our mining-impacted communities know we are here to assist them. Finally, she will help organize education, outreach, and community events around AMD and watershed restoration for our partners and community volunteers. Hopefully, we can build on our RECLAIM Crew volunteer program that encourages volunteers to not only come to our community cleanup events, but also allow them to ultimately spearhead their own environmental volunteer projects.

Welcome aboard, Rachael and Abbie!

The post EPCAMR Hosts Two AmeriCorps/OSMRE Positions to Help Build Capacity in Coalfield Communities appeared first on epcamr.org.

Currently, she is also working with the Lackawanna River Corridor Association (LRCA), under the leadership of Bernie McGurl, LRCA Executive Director and EPCAMR President, in the Lackawanna Valley, working with the Scranton Sewer Authority (SSA) and the City of Scranton to map, survey, photograph, and locate using a GPS coordinate system, any sanitary sewer lines and storm water drainage sysetms that are antiquated, in disrepair, malfunctioning, leaking, discharging, and entering the Lackawanna River Watershed through it’s tributary streams and drainage areas. She is serving as a Storm Water Survey Technician on a part-time basis with the LRCA. She has inputs thtat data into ArcGIS and related attribute data tables for the project.

” This young lady is a go-getter!” exclaimed Robert E. Hughes, EPCAMR Executive Director. “Not only is she working in two related jobs that are in her field of interest relevant to her degree to gain the necessary experience that may land her a full-time position down the road, she is also a PIAA certified referee in Field Hockey reffing junior high school games and has a job at The Limited as a Sales Associate.”

I’ve met Bridgette on numerous occasions, both in the field and in the Office of the LRCA over the last year and could see her work ethic and interest in the environmental work of both LRCA and EPCAMR’s, so I jumped at the opportunity to see if she wanted an interview for one of our Mine Map Project Geographic Information System Technician positions that we were hiring for immediately.

Having started on the job today, she is obviously a quick learner. Our other Geographic Information System Technician, and former EPCAMR Watershed Outreach Intern, Kelsey Biondo, will be her partner in crime in the Scanning and Cataloguing Department of the thousands of mine maps that we’re obtaining from the various State District Mining Offices, Bureau of Deep Mine Safety, and the Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation.

She was so busy today that I didn’t even have time to catch a picture of her for the News Article. I’ll try again on Monday. She was off to Nanticoke Area before 4:15 on her way to referee a Junior High Girl’s Field Hockey Game with her father, who is also a referee. Bridgette got her groove on! Looking forward to having her work with us for a long time.

Bridgette Robinson, new EPCAMR GIS Technician scanning some mine maps on the 56″ ColorTrac Scanner

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