During her term of service, she engaged in projects throughout Texas that included trail maintenance and construction, invasive plant species removal, basic carpentry, and backcountry camping. Although she fell in love with the hands-on aspects of land stewardship, she also wanted to learn the more technical side of conservation work.

This led her to discover and pursue an education in Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Currently enrolled in an online GIS course through Austin Community College, Maria is excited to put her skills to use to help the efforts of EPCAMR and her local coalfield communities. “My experience in GIS so far has mostly involved map making, creating story maps, and data analysis, so I’m very excited to gain skills in scanning, digitizing, cataloging, georeferencing, and mapping for the PA Department of Environmental Protection’s Mine Subsidence Insurance (MSI) program. This internship is an opportunity to gain these hands-on skills, while also being able to learn from some of the most well respected and experienced GIS professionals here at EPCAMR.” For instance, she has created a previous data analysis dashboard on World Happiness. From the looks of it, we can use more happiness in the US.

Bobby Hughes, EPCAMR Executive Director said, “She is a detail-oriented professional with a strong
background in outreach, GIS, and conservation. She already has a proven track record and expertise with coordinating AmeriCorps Programs, managing outreach initiatives, is moving in the direction of building her technical skill sets in GIS, which is exactly what we are looking for. We have plenty of work to be done in the Mine Subsidence Insurance Program area of our work on scanning, catalouging, georeferencing, digitizing, and mosaicking. Her resume shined with skills in project management, social media content creation, and event coordination. These are all great skills to have as an intern. She’s a problem solver and a team player, both qualities we need here at EPCAMR since we are a small shop and tend to be the ones helping others in our communities to help them solve environmental problems. Her fluency in Spanish at an intermediate level may come in handy as well knowing how may students and families we come in contact with throughout our region that speak Spanish.”

Maria is seen here at a farm-to-table restaurant in Antigua, Guatelmala.

Maria even has certifications from the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulations as an Apprentice Electrician, Wilderness First Aid, and a Green Careers Texas Solar Installer.

Maria Gereda is learning how to fell a tree as a part of her Texas Conservation Corps term.

Maria will have plenty of opportunity over the Summer to pick up and assist EPCAMR with our many projects throughout the region and improve upon her GIS skills as well as learn much more about the legacy mining impacts in the region.

We look forward to her giving us a hand, just as we are our Bonner Leader Program student, from Wilkes University, Ian Padden. He is able to give us 2 days a week and she is able to give us 3 days a week.

She’s already starting scanning and cataloging some of the Industrial Archives Library mining maps, Shickshinny Creek Historical Society & Museum mine maps from the E.S. Stackhouse Collliery and Salem Coal Company, and will be starting to get her Aquatic Organism Protocol (AOP) Training through NAACC to eventually become certified  and later a Lead Observer to survey bridges and culverts as a part of our watershed assessement and coldwater heritage planning work for the Shickshinny Creek, PaddyRun, and Rocky Run tribuaries to the Susquehanna River in the southern end of the Wyoming Valley at the southern tip of the Northern Anthracite Coal Fields.

The post EPCAMR Welcomes Kingston native, Maria Gereda as a Summer Watershed GIS Outreach/Education Intern appeared first on epcamr.org.

T.R.A.I.L.S. stands for:

• T = Trail Development
• R = Responsible Riding
• A = Access
• I = Initiatives
• L = Lobbying
• S = Safety

Polaris’s grant program encompasses two main objectives – promoting safe and responsible riding, and preserving access. Funds can be used by organizations for trail development and maintenance projects, safety and education initiatives, and other projects to increase and maintain land access.

EPCAMR will be assessing the safety and future potential trail development on abandoned mine lands throughout Northeastern and NorthCentral PA in partnership with the Earth Conservancy , PA Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (PA DCNR), PA Game Commission (PGC), and other private landowners including County Governments that we work with on reclaiming abandoned mine sites remediating streams impacted by polluted mine water and the creation of trails and open space areas. EPCAMR will be assessing and surveying the potential hazards around the development maintenance and construction of trails on these abandoned mine sites to increase the public’s knowledge of them potential for future access and to justify the need for State or Federal funding to improve the health and safety aspects on many of these sites, including the identification of illegal dump sites and recommendations for future cleanup. EPCAMR will also be better suited to access areas where we currently are monitoring abandoned mine discharges at tunnel locations, shafts, slopes, breaches, and other surface water impoundments that are contributing abandoned mine drainage (AMD) into the surrounding watersheds and communities that we serve.

EPCAMR has been in need of an ATV to access these sites for years to get our field monitoring equipment maintenance equipment, spray paint for the various trails, supplies, cameras, GPS units, and water monitoring equipment that often times have to be backpacked in and out of these sites on the back’s of Staff that can way upwards of 30-40 pounds. The funds would be used to purchase an ATV or ATVs with enough space to transport a few staff and the necessary equipment to conduct all of our field work. It will also support other outreach and education materials that will be developed by the EPCAMR Staff over the course of the year, including posters, trail maps, additional partnerships with private landowners to discuss access issues, coordination of illegal dump site cleanups on abandoned mine lands, and the health and safety factors present on these sites that EPCAMR is all too familiar with. EPCAMR in the past has been an active member of the PA Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Outdoor Recreational Committee and is very familiar with issues surrounding ATVs public access for ATV users and other forms of recreational trail user groups. EPCAMR also has a long-standing relationship with many coal land operators, coal companies, large landowners, and other regional non-profit conservancy groups throughout Northeastern and NorthCentral PA.

The benefits of this project will be that more miles of trails, streams impacted by AMD, and abandoned mine lands can be surveyed and assessed more quickly and with the proper equipment being able to be brought in and out of the sites to perform the necessary site surveys for public health and safety. No organization is doing this right now in Northeastern PA on abandoned mine lands that we are aware of and EPCAMR has a 20 year history of working on abandoned mine land reclamation trail projects, stream restoration projects, community outreach, and environmental education programs in our coalfield communities. We have existing relationships with Off-Road Vehicle Clubs 4X4 Clubs and Off-Road Magazines that can help us promote our work and the Polaris T.R.A.I.L.S. program. Currently our regional non-profit lacks the transportation to get to these sites to properly assess and survey them other than hiking and walking in to them for miles with heavy backpacks and numerous trips due to the inability to get in and out with everything we need in one trip, therefore creating additional time that is necessary to double back and walk in and out of these areas over and over again.

EPCAMR will list the Polaris T.R.A.I.L.S. Grant Program on our website (epcamr.org), FaceBook (EPCAMR), and on our PA Abandoned Mine Reclamation Community Facebook Group page. EPCAMR will be incorporating the Polaris logo with permission into our trail maps and other reports that are likely to be produced. EPCAMR will shoot our own HD video and create a poster of us performing maintenance surveys and taking photographs of scenic vistas, AMD, illegal dumping sites, before and after photos of anticipated cleanups, potential hazards, and vertical mine openings or water-filled stripping pits often located on these properties to increase the education outreach and awareness that is necessary to promote safety on these trails, haul roads, and abandoned railroad grades.

EPCAMR Executive Director, Robert E. Hughes, who wrote the grant application on a lead from EPCAMR’s Community Development Coordinator Volunteer, Frank Knorek, who did some initial homework on potential sources of funding such as this application program that would be able to assist EPCAMR in fulfilling it’s mission. “I appreciate Frank’s due diligence and investigative abilities to find us the source of grant funds that were out there.” Most of the time, it’s the wee hours in the morning, when I have the time that is completely uninterrupted where I can focus on writing down what EPCAMR needs that will at the same time fulfill the needs of the grantors. This grant was no different. Earlier in the Summer, on June 29th, I sat down that evening and within a few hours had plugged in to the online application why we needed this grant for these types of vehicles and field monitoring equipment. I was pleasantly surprised when I got a call two days ago from Jennifer Kuzma, Polaris Industries Inc.-Marketing & Event Coordinator from Medina, Minnesota. These funds will be put to good use.”

The post POLARIS Trails Grant Program Awards EPCAMR $10,000 for ATV Purchases and Field Monitoring Equipment appeared first on epcamr.org.

EPCAMR is in the process of filling three  seasonal temporary outdoor field positions to assist one of our partners, the Earth Conservancy, with maintaining signage, clearing brush, spray painting existing trail markings of various levels of difficulty with different colored spray paint on several publicly accessible trails in the Wyoming Valley over the next month or two. Coordination will be provided by the EC and EPCAMR Staff at the trail locations as to the direction and pre-existing conditions of the low-impact trails and more heavily used vehicle trails.

Gabby Zawacki is one of those seasonal Trail Markers and former Community Outreach Relations Intern with EPCAMR last Fall through May of this year. She will throw on a backpack filled with spray paint and hike steep slopes, carry a backpack weighing up to 20 pounds of field supplies (backpacks, supplies, water, camera, and spray paint will be provided), walk several miles at a time, have an ability to read a topographic or aerial photographic map, have a familiarity with orienteering, not have any difficulties climbing or walking over rocks and outcrops along the trails, be familiar with poison ivy and poison oak, be able to navigate through picker bushes and multi-flora rose, Japanese knotweed, and other heavily wooded areas. Right now, she’ll be joined by Elizabeth Rosser, EPCAMR’s Watershed Outreach Specialist Intern, until we fill our third position. EPCAMR’s happy to have her back to work with us for the remainder of the Summer.

EPCAMR’s newest Seasonal Trail Marker joins us to provide some maintenance on Earth Conservancy’s Trail Systems in the Wyoming Valley and Southern Wyoming Valley through the Summer of 2014.

EPCAMR wants our Seasonal Trail Markers to be very careful of the steep ridges, especially along the Mocanaqua Loop Trail and they should pay specific attention and use caution around wildlife habitats such as possible bear dens and snake areas. EPCAMR expects that pictures will be taken of the trail activities on a daily basis and of natural areas, scenic overlooks, and various points of interest or plants and wildlife along the trails. The EPCAMR Trail Markers will be wearing appropriate clothes and shoes/hiking boots and socks be worn for any trail hiking and will be prepared for quick changes in weather by bringing rain gear, if necessary.  Hydration and energy are also keys to successful hiking. The trails to be marked are as follows on maps that will be provided:

The Mocanaqua Loop Trails              

1. Emergency Access Route
2. Green Loop (8 miles)
3. Blue Loop (7 miles)
4. Brown Loop (6 miles)
5. Orange Loop (2 miles)

The Sugar Notch Trails 

1.         Ridgetop Trail (3.06 miles)

2.         Park Access Trail (0.64 miles)

The Penobscot Ridge Mountain Bike Trail (1.6 miles)

Trail Descriptions and links to the maps from the Earth Conservancy website  

( www.earthconservancy.org )

http://earthconservancy.org/html/mocanaqua_trails.html 

http://earthconservancy.org/Moc_Loop_Map.jpg (Mocanaqua Loop Trails Map)

http://earthconservancy.org/html/sugar_notch_trails.html

http://earthconservancy.org/Sugar_Notch_Map.jpg (Sugar Notch Trails Map)

http://earthconservancy.org/html/penobscot_bike_trail.html

http://earthconservancy.org/Penobscot_Map.jpg (Penobscot Ridge Mountain Bike Trail Map)

The post Gabby Zawacki is Back as a Seasonal EPCAMR Trail Marker!! This Time with some Spray Paint and a Backpack over her Shoulders appeared first on epcamr.org.