Maria Gereda, Kingston, PA  from the Wyoming Valley, and Dennis Dukinas, Dallas, PA, from the Back Mountain, both natives of Luzerne County, will be hosted and supervised by EPCAMR until the end of December 2025 to work with us to provide volunteer services to add some capacity to the organization starting yesterday.

Bobby Hughes, EPCAMR Executive Director exclaimed, “We are thrilled to have both of these environmental and conservation professionals join us for the 20 plus weeks through the end of the year to assist us with a number of direct service projects that we currently have underway with a limited staff, who have the passion and commitment to follow through on a number of our awarded grants and professional services throughout the EPCAMR Region.”

Bobby went on to say, “I can’t say enough about Conservation Legacy, OSMRE, and especially AmeriCorps (State and National) and AmeriCorps VISTA and their support for our work. April Elkins Badtke has been a long-time friend and colleague for over 2 decades when the original Appalachian Coal Country Watershed Team was formed to provide similar support to non-profit environmental organizations that were and are still working in coal country up and down the Appalachian Mountain Range. She is a consummate professional at Conservation Legacy who never has had a problem responding to my emails or messages at all hours of the night or on weekends and listening to my concerns about AmeriCorps and the funding cuts that we had to endure several months ago. We currently have Morgan Romanowski, Scott Township, Lackawanna County working with us through the end of September 2025 to finish up her year term as an AmeriCorps (State and National) volunteer fellow GIS Watershed Outreach Specialist and Mark Jones, who initially was an Energy Community Assistance Program (ECAP) Community Development Coordinator volunteer with AmeriCorps VISTA, who had to placed into Conservation Legacy’s AmeriCorps VISTA Program. He will be volunteering with us until the end of December 2025.”

Maria will continue her work with EPCAMR as a GIS Watershed Outreach Specialist through the Stewards Individual Placement Program. In her new role, she will help promote food security by encouraging the creation of community gardens in coalfield communities and working with local organizations to plant, maintain, and harvest them as one project that EPCAMR has already started on with the distribution of biodegradable Waterboxxes from Groasis that we have been giving away for free to groups that are interested. Community gardens were very common in what were called “patches” in the coal towns around the Anthracite and Bituminous regions. She will also support affordable housing development by advocating for new housing developments to consider being built on reclaimed abandoned mine lands. She will also continue to engage and assist with  environmental education experiences for students in school districts throughout the region that are under the poverty level.

Dennis and Maria are “kicking for macroinvertebrates on Little Shickshinny Creek in Shickshinny Borough as a part of our Coldwater Heritage Conservation Plan where we are developing a watershed assessment for the Shickshinny Creek Watershed and Paddy and Rocky Run.

Bobby said, “Maria, a Luzerne County native, from Kingston, PA in the Wyoming Valley, joined EPCAMR just two months ago as a part-time Summer Watershed GIS Outreach and Education Intern. In that short time, she has gained a wide range of hands-on experience that will serve her well in her expanding role. She was a natural fit for this longer term position that could give her full-time hours under this program.” 

During her internship, Maria earned a certification in the Non-Tidal Streams Protocol through the North Atlantic Aquatic Connectivity Collaborative (NAACC). She worked closely with EPCAMR Staff to scan and catalog both surface and underground mine maps for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s Mine Subsidence Insurance Program. She also participated in field watershed assessments, surveying bridges and culverts across the Shickshinny Creek, Paddy Run, and Rocky Run tributaries in the southern Wyoming Valley—work that directly supports EPCAMR’s ongoing watershed assessment efforts in the Northern Anthracite Coal Fields funded by the PA American Water Charitable Foundation and the PA Council of Trout Unlimited‘s Coldwater Heritage Planning grant program. 

Maria also contributed to community outreach by assisting with water quality monitoring, stream flow measurements, and abandoned mine drainage (AMD) evaluations. She also helped engage local youth in environmental learning during educational events like tie-dye workshops. Her professional network has expanded by attending conferences, including the Abandoned Mine Pools as Beneficial Resources event at Bucknell University and the 2025 ARIPPA Annual Conference.

EPCAMR Staff conducted an AMD Tie Dye T-shirt Workshop for PA Inclusive in Pittston with our recycled iron oxide pigment. Dennis assisted Morgan Romanowski, Mark Jones, and Bobby Hughes in putting on the workshop for the youth and adults.

In addition, Maria will contribute to the development of “land that channels rainfall” resource maps, combining data on demographics, economic indicators, and workforce development with information on local trade schools and community colleges. She will conduct short community surveys and polls via EPCAMR’s social media platforms, update and expand the EPCAMR Partnership Database across 16 counties within our region alone, with our Community Development Coordinator Mark Jones, and will assist in identifying grant opportunities and other organizations and foundations that might be suitable for preparing future grant applications. Her work as well and Dennis’s work will be closely aligned with the goals and objectives laid out by EPCAMR’s Strategic Planning and Education/Science Committees.

Currently enrolled in an online GIS course through Austin Community College, Maria is eager to apply what she’s learning to the real-world challenges facing Pennsylvania’s coalfield communities. Her passion, commitment, and growing expertise make her a valuable asset to EPCAMR’s mission of revitalizing the region through education, outreach, sustainable redevelopment of our abandoned mine lands, and restoration of our watersheds impacted by abandoned mine drainage (AMD).

Maria participated in an AMD Tour in Schuylkill County with EPCAMR where she was able to visit the infamous “Ashland Fountain”, which is a constantly overflowing AMD discharge from the Bast and Continental Collieries that drains to the Mahanoy Creek watershed as explained by Bobby Hughes, EPCAMR Executive Director.

Dennis Dukinas, Dallas, PA, in the Back Mountain of Luzerne County is currently completing my final course at Bloomsburg University, where he is finishing his degree in Environmental, Geological, and Geographic Sciences with a Minor in Hydrology.

Bobby shared that “Throughout his academic career, he has gained valuable hands-on experience both outdoors as an Eagle Scout and indoors, working with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) desktop environments. He has already used mapping technologies such as ArcGIS Pro and ERDAS Imagine remote sensing imagery and software to create various hypothetical scenarios in college and now gets to take those lessons learned from the hypothetical to the real world watersheds that EPCAMR works in throughout the coalfields. His experience already includes georeferencing, story mapping, census data analysis, and using tools like ArcGIS Pro Online’s ModelBuilder. He already has earned certifications through ArcGIS Online and holds a Watershed Management Training Certification. He’s also already received a free Aquatic Organism Protocol Training from EPCAMR while a volunteering two weeks before his official internship from NAACC. Maria already has this Certificate as well, however, both of them have to assess 20 culverts and or bridges before they can become a field Lead Observer.”

In his role as a GIS Watershed Outreach Specialist, prior to his start today, he’s already gained valuable experience assessing water quality, conducting visual habitat assessments, identifying, counting, and classifying macroinvertebrates as a part of the biological assessment monitoring EPCAMR conducts for our watersheds assessments, and he’s learned how to use our field photometer and YSI Multi-parameter probe already to perform chemistry tests in-stream. He will be involved in a number of projects that were highlighted by Bobby Hughes on their first day of orientation, along with some training provided to them in EarthVision, where they will be helping to digitize mine maps for another project of ours in the Bear Creek Watershed, Dauphin County and creating 3D surface and underground mine pool models to help us calculate volumetrics of water and coal remaining a region of the Southern Anthracite Coalfields. 

Bobby joked with Dennis before this week to get as much sleep in over the Holiday Weekend because he will be shifting from volunteering a few days a week to a full 40 hours a week through the end of the year. “He was in this morning ready to go and get some administrative paperwork out of the way, hear about the myriad of projects that we are going to be working on, work on his background article notes for this release, and to begin his initial training on EarthVision with Mike. I’m really looking forward to the energy, enthusiasm, willingness to jump in and learn from the Staff about all of important work in the region and the value that their efforts are going to have in the communities that we are working in that we have maintained positive, trusting relationships with, for nearly 3 decades.”

Michael Hewitt, EPCAMR Program Manager and Frank Sindaco, GIS Watershed Outreach Specialist is teaching Maria and Dennis how to use our field monitoring equipment at the Askam AMD Maelstrom Oxidizer Treatment System on Earth Conservancy’s property along Dundee Road in the Nanticoke Creek watershed.

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The fundraiser and launch event will take place on February 26 from 5-9PM at Damenti’s Ice Bar located at 5 Bowman’s Mill Road (Exit 145, off Interstate I-81, West Hazleton, PA). [Get Google Maps Directions]

The event will feature a screening of the two new videos, hands-on demonstrations, and activities, and a photo booth with our trout puppets from the video. One video will follow Brooky the brook trout as he braves a storm and reconnects with his Auntie Rainbow. It will highlight AMD, blocked culverts, impediments to fish and aquatic life, fish ecology, AMD Treatment, and macroinvertebrate identification.

A take with Seven the Snail at the end of the Askam AMD Treatment System on Nanticoke Creek.

Auntie Rainbow Trout gazing into the clean stream upstream.

Brooky the Trout getting ready for his film debut at the Askam Maelstrom Oxidizer Treatment System on Nanticoke Creek.

Brooky the Trout and his puppeteer getting ready for some lines.

The second video will highlight the EPCAMR Staff taking two students on a tour of a local AMD discharge in South Wilkes-Barre, PA and walk them through how they monitor the locations for flow and chemistry. They will also learn how iron oxide is recycled and collected to create a pigment that EPCAMR processes to be used in various art forms and activities.

The youth actors and Laura are preparing for a scene along the Askam AMD discharge in the Nanticoke Creek watershed.

The students and the trout puppets will be featured in a three-station showcase of AMD Art, AMD Tie Dye Shirt Making, and AMD Chalk Making.

Brooky and Rainbow gather around the AMD Artwork at one of the EPCAMR Showcase Stations in the video.

This is one example of iron oxide pigment used for an AMD Tie Dye t-shirt.

EPCAMR’s Iron Oxide Chalk Making Station featured in one of the videos.

A meet and greet with producer Claudia Meglin, creative director for visual effect of the popular children’s show, Lazytown will also be happening and she will say a few words about working with EPCAMR over the last few years through ISI and funding provided by the Mental Insight Foundation, American Water Charitable Foundation, The Luzerne Foundation, and PA Council of Trout Unlimited’s Forever WILD funds and EPCAMR. Both videos were produced and co-directed by Centone Pictures and Reiner Productions.

Here are some of the crew and cast from the second EPCAMR video.

Here are some of the crew and cast for one of the videos.

There will also be a silent auction featuring some art made with recycled iron oxide from local streams.

Attendees will also have the opportunity to learn more about the organization’s mission and how they can get involved in their local community.

“We are excited to launch these new educational resources and provide young students with the knowledge and tools they need to positively impact the environment,” said Laura Rinehimer, EPCAMR’s Environmental Education Program Specialist. “Through this fundraiser and launch event, we hope to raise awareness and funds to support our continued efforts to educate and empower local children to become engaged locally in their watersheds.”

Since the pandemic, EPCAMR has tried to shift some of our educational focus toward creating short environmental education videos and virtual presentations and curricula that we could share with teachers and students across our region to reach a broader audience when we couldn’t get directly into the schools or conduct the outdoor watershed learning experiences we had commonly done in years past,” stated Bobby Hughes, EPCAMR Executive Director. “We involved several excited local youths in the videos, voice actors and puppeteers, as well as all Staff in the combined video productions and aimed for fun, a little comedy, play on words, and some fishy humor.”

EPCAMR invites community members, educators, families, children, and anyone interested in environmental education to attend the event and support their mission. A $5 donation includes admission to Damenti’s Ice Exhibit, Animals on Parade, a drink, and admission to the film screenings. A portion of the ticket sales will be donated to a number of non-profits serving folks in the community and towards the production and distribution of future videos and curricula for local schools and community centers.

For more information about the fundraiser and launch event, or to learn more about the organization and its mission, please visit [EPCAMR.org]. Call 570-371-3523 for details.

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