Congressman Matt Cartwright joins EPCAMR in congratulating our regional organizations in obtaining $50,000 in NFWF Federal Funding to assist in planning, assessing, and working towards the restoration, assessing areas for the removal of sediments and coal silts, identifying stormwater management issues, and assessing eastern brook trout and American black duck habitat for wildlife habitat improvements projects.

“When mining companies picked up and left Northeastern Pennsylvania, they weren’t held accountable for polluting our rivers and streams, and they left our communities to pick up the tab,” said Cartwright, a member of the House Appropriations Committee. “I don’t believe our friends and neighbors should be on the hook financially for a problem they didn’t create. It’s why I’ve always fought hard to boost funding for initiatives like the Chesapeake Bay Program, money that is being put to work to help dedicated advocates like LRCA and EPCAMR clean up the pollution and restore our communities to new glory. These resources will allow for more projects that will leave a legacy of clean water and air for generations to come while lessening the burden on homeowners in our area today.”

Bernie McGurl, Executive Director of the Lackawanna River Conservation Association (LRCA) talks about the Leggett’s Creek greenway and stream restoration planning project.

“We are very pleased with the opportunity to fully develop the greenway and stream restoration plans for this stretch of Leggetts Creek. We will finish construction designs and permitting for a number of projects to begin stream channel restoration, address the impacts of coal mining and urban stormwater, and design recreational trail and stream access sites to enhance the quality of life for neighborhood residents and visitors. We expect to make progress on a range of projects that we will continue to build upon in the years ahead to bring about the restoration of this reach of Leggetts Creek,” said Bernie McGurl, Director of LRCA.

“EPCAMR is looking forward to assessing these historic mining-impacted watersheds along the eastern flank of the Southern Wyoming Valley in partnership with the local governments, community partners, and wildlife and conservation organizations,” said Bobby Hughes, Executive Director of EPCAMR. “We will develop recommendations and a plan following the assessment and monitoring within these watersheds that will lead to future implementation projects that will help our communities to reclaim, remediate, and restore areas that are critical to improving the old infrastructure, improve the water quality locally, and eventually the Susquehanna River and the Chesapeake Bay.”

Bobby Hughes, EPCAMR Executive Director explaining to the audience at the Nay Aug Avenue Natural Playground Pavilion the scope of the work that will be completed along the watersheds on the eastern flank of the Southern Wyoming Valley using a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) watershed map created by his staff.

“After nearly 200 years of mining impacts to Northeastern Pennsylvania, worthy projects like this will receive important funding. This funding helps us better understand where our polluted waters are and how they can be cleaned up.  Most importantly, these projects present potential opportunities for recreation and economic development, so important for the future of our region,” said Jacqui Bonomo, President & CEO of PennFuture.

Jacqui Bonomo, President & CEO of PennFuture speaks at the press event to highlight the great work that EPCAMR and LRCA are doing in NE PA. PennFuture, LRCA, and EPCAMR are all members of the PA Choose Clean Water Coalition, who are many of the 250 leading environmental groups within the Chesapeake Bay Watershed from multiple states who advocate and work towards having clean water within the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, a National Treasure.

As part of the fiscal year 2020 appropriations process, Cartwright successfully increased funding for the Chesapeake Bay Program by $12 million, to a total of $85 million in Fiscal Year 2020. That included a $6 million increase to the Small Watershed Grants Program, for a total of $18 million in FY2020, which is funding the projects that LRCA and EPCAMR will oversee and manage. These federal programs aim to improve the water quality and habitats of the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries through the Small Watershed Grants (SWG) programs. They also can help lessen the burden on homeowners, who often have to pay “stormwater fees” imposed by municipal governments as the Commonwealth works to meet its obligation to restore our watershed.

The Leggetts Creek Greenway Project, managed by LRCA, addresses environmental concerns such as a compromised ecosystem lacking in biodiversity caused by the region’s anthracite coal mining and commercial residential development. The funds will be used to install bank stabilization measures, manage stormwater runoff, and run a monitoring and management program to maintain project efficiency.

EPCAMR will use its grant to fund their initiative, the Wyoming Valley Chesapeake Bay Tributary Field Assessments and Monitoring. The project will recruit volunteers to aid in restoring local natural resources impacted by past mining and provide hands-on field training and observation skills to identify sedimentation, stormwater, and aquatic organism passage in the Wyoming Valley. They also plan to develop and recommend conservation, watershed, and habitat management plans and implementation projects to guide landowners, organizations, and local governments in restoring areas for successful conservation outcomes.

The awards are distributed through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and awarded by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF).

The post Cartwright Joins Advocates (EPCAMR and LRCA) for Announcement of $100,000 in Federal NFWF Funding to Clean Up Area Waterways appeared first on epcamr.org.

Joshua Rinehimer hiking the trails at PA DCNR’s World’s End State Park in Sullivan County.

Josh grew up in northeast Pennsylvania spending most of his youth in the woods helping his father, who worked as a logger.  This is where he developed his passion for environmental conservation.  He is married to his wife Elizabeth, has two sons, Elias and Silas, and expecting a third child in December, and they all love the outdoors as much as he does.  When not working, Josh likes to spend most of his time with his family, but he also likes to go hunting, hiking, camping, fishing, and playing guitar.

“Being an Environmental Geoscience concentration, I really hope to see how the physical geology of the mining impacted region effects the way abandoned mine drainage (AMD) flows through the Wyoming Valley and other coalfield communities.”  “I have learned about the effects of AMD in class, but now I get to see and help in the reclamation of these polluted areas under the leadership and guidance of the EPCAMR Staff and Mr. Hughes.”  “It means a lot to me, not only as a student, but also as a local Pennsylvanian, the work that EPCAMR has been doing in this area for more than two decades.”  “The steps we take today ensure a better, cleaner Earth for my children’s generation are what it’s all about.” emphasized Josh.

Robert E. Hughes, stated, “We’re glad to bring Josh on for the next 6 weeks to help us out over the Summer with many of our projects and programs. It never seems to slow down anymore in the Office and around the region with the amount of work, technical assistance, grant management, project management, and environmental education programs that we undertake within the communities that we serve. It’s always nice to have a few extra hands around to pick up on the work that we are doing and for him as an Intern to acquire the necessary skills and training in the field of watershed restoration, wildlife and aquatic habitat improvement, and environmental education and outreach. He’s come at a very busy time of the year, so I assured him that daily he will be going from one end of the environmental spectrum to the other helping us to juggle and manage the dozens of projects that we have going on throughout the Coalfields of Northeastern and Northcentral PA.”

“Josh has already helped to process iron oxide, sample iron oxide precipitate in the bottom of Earth Conservancy’s Askam AMD Maelstrom Oxidizer Treatment system that we monitor and maintain for them, assisted with a bi-county AMD and Abandoned Mine Lands tour of undergraduate and graduate Landscape Architecture students from the University of Oregon, inspected our Solomon Creek Trout Stream Dam Removal and Habitat Improvement Construction Project in Ashley Borough, Luzerne County, and is actively taking an online training and certification course in Aquatic Organism Passage (AOP) that most EPCAMR Staff have already through the North Atlantic Aquatic Connectivity Collaborative (NAACC), in partnership with Trout Unlimited, under the leadership of Phil Thomas, Habitat Coordinator for the PA Coldwater Habitat Restoration Program. The NAACC has developed common protocols and training for assessing road-stream crossings (culverts and bridges) and developed a regional database for this field data. The information collected will be used to identify high priority bridges and culverts for upgrade and replacement. Next week, he’ll be planting Waterboxxes and conducting a cleanup in Plainsville with incoming Wilkes University students as a service learning project,  tie-dying t-shirts with Science, Technology, Engineering, & Math (STEM) students in the Wilkes-Barre Area School District’s STEM Youth Camp for 1ST through 5th grade at Kistler Elementary in Wilkes-Barre, PA, taking Hazleton area-youth fishing at Lake Irena in Hazleton, PA, and assisting with another AMD Tour with Penn-State Master Watershed Stewards at our Office. I’d say he’s going to be learning lots about EPCAMR and how much work we REALLY do around the region in the next few weeks. I think he’s up for the challenge!” laughed, Robert.

The post EPCAMR Welcomes Joshua Rinehimer, Bloomsburg University Senior as a 6-week Summer Watershed Outreach Intern appeared first on epcamr.org.

Robert Hughes, EPCAMR Executive Director, receives the $5,000 donation on behalf of EPCAMR & WPCAMR

In the past, applications were submitted for AMD projects, educational efforts, outreach and awareness programs, operation and maintenance of AMD treatment systems, and educational signage, among others. These projects help the AMD impacted watersheds. All applicants support ARIPPA and their mission to remove waste coal piles in our communities, convert it into renewable energy, and reuse the coal ash at mine reclamation sites. The groups awarded funding maintain diverse partnerships and secure various funding sources to complete projects with EPCAMR and WPCAMR. All of the applicants want clean water, an improved environment, and a better quality of life for their communities and the fisheries they are working to protect across Pennsylvania.

In Eastern Pennsylvania, EPCAMR awarded three projects for the year of 2015. First is the Mehoopany Creek Watershed Association (MCWA), who will be receiving $800 to cover the cost of 50 tons of high calcium carbonate limestone sand needed to treat the acidic conditions of the south branch of Mehoopany Creek, which is not only impacted by AMD, but also acid rain deposition in the headwaters.

Limestone sand pile

Askam AMD Treatment System

Second is the Earth Conservancy (EC), who will be receiving $1,200 to design and build a wayside environmental education exhibit for the Askam AMD Borehole Maelstrom Oxidizer Treatment System, located in Hanover Township, along Nanticoke Creek. EC will partner with students and teachers from the Wilkes-Barre Area School District to create several points of interest and design elements at the AMD treatment site to be used by students throughout the Wyoming Valley that take tours provided by EPCAMR and EC. The students will tour the site, while learning about the AMD treatment system, mine pools, abandoned mine land reclamation, wetlands, wildlife habitat. They will then design the content and locations of the exhibits.

Third, and finally, is the McGlynn Learning Center, who will be awarded $500 to partner with Home Depot to build bluebird boxes for abandoned mine lands and AMD sites throughout the Wyoming Valley, as well as for their own community housing developments.

Bluebird box

McGlynn Learning Center youth

The funds will be used for transportation, supplies, and the creation of EPCAMR’s iron oxide wood stain to paint some of the bird boxes, while others will be painted. These bluebird boxes are being donated by Home Depot and will be used to allow for increased wildlife habitat and diversity of bird populations within their complexes and out on some of the AMD sites that will be visited by the students. The McGlynn Learning Center has been serving vulnerable children since 1988. The Center provides after-school funding for tutoring, recreational, and cultural activities at no cost to the children or families that live within the low-income housing town homes. EPCAMR has a long history of supporting the Center that goes back nearly two decades.

Remediation projects are costly and long-term endeavors, with costs averaging between $10-20,000 per acre, according to the Pennsylvania Mining Reclamation Advisory Board. The ARIPPA Reclamation Awards are designed to help watershed groups continue their volunteer efforts toward improving our environment.

Organized in 1989, ARIPPA is a non-profit trade association representing alternative energy plants that remove coal refuse from AML areas, convert it into alternative energy, and use the ash byproduct to reclaim thousands of acres of mine-scarred lands and hundreds of miles of formerly dead streams, without any expenditure of tax dollars. To date, over 212 million tons of coal refuse has been converted into alternative energy by member plants. ARIPPA uses Circulating Fluidized Bed (CFB) technology, one of the cleanest methods available today.

The unique nature of ARIPPA’s environmental efforts, combined with the desire to coordinate these efforts with “hands-on” environmentally-oriented groups and governmental agencies, symbolizes its commitment to improving the nation’s landscape and environment. Updates and further information on the “coal refuse to alternative energy” industry can be found by using the links below.

Website:                             www.arippa.org

LinkedIn:                            www.linkedin.com/ARIPPA.org

Facebook:                          www.facebook.com/ARIPPA.org

Twitter:                               www.twitter.com/ARIPPAORG

YouTube:                             www.youtube.com/user/environmentalrenewal

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