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.

Figure 1. A freshman class reflecting on their day of service at the Community Garden, sitting among the beds, compost, and water collection system.

Expanding Partnerships 

In two years, the campus group has expanded from four students and two staff members to over 20 students and six staff members. In addition, partnerships have been created with engineering classes, the engineering club, the Hispanic Outreach Program, the Juvenile Mentoring Program, the campus volunteering center, Campus Ministry, Crestwood High School, Coughlin High School, the Hildebrant Learning Center, Ruth’s Place, and The Wilkes-Barre Department of Health. Jessica Britten, a founder and our Winter Semester Intern, she has been able to develop a partnership with the King’s College Community Garden that will allow for the students to also try out this new innovation in the Spring.

EPCAMR is joining and supporting them in their efforts to unite the community and promote sustainable lifestyles by donating boxes from the Growboxx project, which will be placed in one of ten of the garden’s plots to be utilized for their second harvest.

EPCAMR Involvement 

Staff members Denise, Laura, Robert, and Shawnese have been working with The Growboxx project from Groasis, an extremely innovative Dutch company, by sharing the initiative with elementary schools in the community. The project promotes sustainability in every aspect by upholding the company’s goal of, “‘low cost, less water, faster growth”’. EPCAMR is fortunate to be a part of bringing their innovative sustainability tactics to high poverty area school districts throughout the Wyoming Valley, Luzerne County, PA.

The Community Garden could not be more thrilled to learn from EPCAMR and share the international initiative with King’s College and the surrounding community.  Each Growboxx increases the survival rate of plant species by 90% while also using 90% less water. Following EPCAMR’s suggestion, the garden will be growing native raspberry plants along with herbs in these “intelligent buckets”.

Figure 2. A Growboxx that will be used in the garden in support of their second harvest.

Growing Community

Bringing this project to the garden will build bridges between different populations in the city and surrounding municipalities, now stretching as far as the Netherlands. Creating relationships and continuity between people is a goal of the garden’s and creating collective change in the community through environmental initiatives has been a goal of EPCAMR’s. This mutualistic partnership is guaranteed to make a lasting impact on our combined communities.

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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.”

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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.”

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Location of the whirlpool breakthrough into the Ewen Mine workings, beneath the Susquehanna River

The programs are sponsored by the Anthracite Heritage Museum, Anthracite Heritage Foundation, King’s College, Luzerne County Historical Society, Luzerne County Community College, Wilkes University, Huber Breaker Preservation Society, EPCAMR, Greater Pittston Historical Society, Anthracite Living History Group, Old Forge Coal Mine, and Knox Mine Disaster Memorial Committee.

All events are open to the public free of charge, except the first one.

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS FOR MINING HISTORY WEEK 2015

Jan. 10th, 8 am
Boy Scouts of America, “Mining in Society” Merit Badge Day, King’s College – open only to Boy Scout members of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Council; program ends at 6 pm

Jan. 15th, 7 pm 
Msgr. John J. Curran Annual Lecture, Prof. Walter T. Howard of Bloomsburg University, speaking on “Socialist and Communist Labor Organizers in the Wyoming and Lackawanna Coal Fields during the 1930s,” King’s College, Burke Auditorium, McGowan School of Business – refreshments served at 6:30 pm

Jan. 17th, 2 pm
Knox Mine Disaster Annual Remembrance Program, Anthracite Heritage Museum, McDade Park, Scranton: displays; music; special tribute to photographers, Steven and William Lukasik Sr., and news reporter, Jack Scanella; new segments of The Knox Disaster Documentary by David Brocca of Los Angeles, CA; commentary by Chester Kulesa, William Lukasik, Jr., and Robert Wolensky – refreshments provided

Jan. 18th, 10 am
Knox Mine Disaster Memorial Service, St. John the Evangelist Church, Pittston

Jan. 18th, 11:30 am 
Knox Mine Disaster Public Commemoration, PHMC Historical Marker in front of Baloga Funeral Home, Port Griffith – coffee provided, courtesy of Baloga Funeral Home

Jan. 20th, 6:30 pm
Huber Breaker Preservation Society, Atty. F. Charles Petrillo of Wilkes-Barre will present and discuss two classic Anthracite-related documentary films at Earth Conservancy, Ashley – refreshments provided

Jan. 22th, 6:30 pm 
Luzerne County Historical Society, William Hastie and Robert Wolensky will speak about their book, “Anthracite Labor Wars,” Wyoming Presbyterian Church, Wyoming – refreshments provided

Jan. 24th, 2-4 pm
Meet and Hear Local Authors, Barnes & Noble Bookstore, Wilkes-Barre Township: local authors will speak about their books, beginning at 2:30 pm, and meet and greet patrons before and afterwards; authors include William Conologue, John Dziak, William Hastie, William Kashatus, Kathleen Munley, Sheldon Spear, Kenneth Wolensky, and Robert Wolensky

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Denise Hernandez, EPCAMR’s Part-Time Bookkeeper and Community Service Volunteer

Denise comes to EPCAMR through a reference and Professor from Luzerne County Community College, Dr. Brooke Yeager, who is a long-time supporter and friend of EPCAMR’s. It’s a very small world. She even knows some colleagues of the EPCAMR Executive Director’s through some AAU Sports Programs that her son is involved with in the City of Wilkes-Barre and they have some close friends that are only six degrees of separation apart from one another. She has plenty of experience in the Microsoft Office Suite and QuickBooks, which is a bonus. Dierdre Jolley, our former Part-time Bookkeeper has moved on from EPCAMR in an amicable way to a more long-term full-time accounting position in the Back Mountain. Denise has been able to fill her shoes quite well. Denise also has some familiarity with ArcGIS Suite (ArcMap, ArcCatalog, ArcToolbox-Verson 10) and other geospatial data management tools. She’s looking forward to volunteering with EPCAMR to learn more about our use of GIS and 3D Modeling of our underground mines throughout the Anthracite Region as a Volunteer, while being paid for a few hours out of the month to assist EPCAMR with Accounting and Bookkeeping principles, reconciliations, invoices, reimbursements, and data entry into our QuickBooks for Non-Profits Accounting Software.

She has previously worked for the Institute for Public Policy and Development, Wilkes-Barre, PA in the Fall of 2013 as an Intern. She is currently also working for the Good Shepard Lutheran Church, Wilkes-Barre, PA from April of 2007 to the present, where she is a Parish Secretary. She has previously worked at the Luzerne County Community College, Nanticoke, PA as an Administrative Assistant/Receptionist, so EPCAMR’s clerical duties are nothing new to her, although the type of work that we do to restore the environment is. She previously had been a Receptionist/Administrative Assistant for the Times-Leader, Wilkes-Barre, PA as well. She has a very long and productive work history and is Bi-lingual in Spanish. EPCAMR is hoping to be able to provide her with some opportunities to work in the field with our Staff on projects and with students during some of our Summer and Fall Environmental Education Programs. Her ability to speak another language may come in handy as we continue to work with a very diverse student population within the coalfield communities and underserved school districts that we partner with. Denise excitedly said, “I am very excited to work with Robert and EPCAMR on environmental issues in the area that I’m not entirely familiar with. I’m like a sponge! I will eat up all the information that they will give me and experiences that the Staff are willing to share ! I’m looking forward to spending as much time with them over the Summer and Fall and hopefully thereafter, to gain some very valuable experiences and participate in some first hand community experiences to clean up the watersheds that have been impacted by AMD and abandoned mines”.

Robert stated, “I knew I liked her the second I met her because of her calm demeanor, her background, and her enthusiasm for wanting to obtain the position. I need someone who is as detail-oriented as I am for this position. We hit it off during the interview right away. She knew where I was coming from and I know where she wanted to go. Plus, it’s good to have another set of eyes on the books to cross-reference my check book register with the actual bank statements and Quickbooks, along with our Treasurer, and myself.” “Part-time work is just what she needed and we can provided her with a few hours a week, in addition to her wanting to become an active volunteer with EPCAMR because of her background and recent degree in Environmental Studies. I think she will benefit tremendously from working with EPCAMR and volunteering for other opportunities that we offer throughout the year where she can participate in to get a feel for the breadth and depth of work that a regional non-profit organization like ours does to improve our watersheds, rivers, streams, and land impacted by past mining practices.”

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