March 25, 2001
Tribune-Review
Workshop to highlight watershed movement
By Jerry Storey
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
The Fayette County Conservation District is sponsoring a free workshop Friday that is a watershed event in more ways than one.
The daylong workshop at Penn State University Fayette campus will explore what county groups are doing to clean up watersheds - the drainage areas for rivers and their tributaries.
The interest in watersheds could also represent a turning point for the area's environment. One example of that is the water sampling at 40 sites taken recently by volunteers from the Georges Creek Clearwater Cooperative Initiative.
"We've done a lot of work and come really far in the last year," said Marian Chambers, who works with the Georges Creek initiative.
The group will report on its efforts at the workshop's morning session, along with four of the county's other watershed associations - the Greater Redstone Clearwater Initiative, the Jacobs Creek Watershed Association, the Mountain Watershed Association and the Youghiogheny River Council. Workshop participants will hear what each of the organizations is doing to help restore watersheds and how they can get involved with the effort.
The state Department of Environmental Protection is emphasizing whole watersheds, rather than isolated streams, to clean up the acid mine drainage, sewage, agricultural wastes, and other sources of pollution that have defiled many of the area's waterways.
Most of the county conservation districts have hired watershed coordinators to assist in the effort. Heather Fowler, the watershed coordinator for the Fayette County Conservation District, organized the upcoming workshop.
The state is also backing up the watershed philosophy with funding through its Growing Greener grant program.
"Growing Greener spurred interest," said Nick Pinizzoto, the watershed director for the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. "Groups became revived and new groups sprung up."
The conservancy also is stepping up its efforts to help local groups clean up watersheds. Pinizzoto will give a presentation Friday on the conservancy's new watershed center, based at Fallingwater.
GRASSROOTS MOVEMENT
State and local officials have also been receptive to the watershed groups. As an example, the Springhill Township supervisors played a role in organizing the Georges Creek Clearwater Cooperative Initiative.
But those involved in the watershed work in Fayette County emphasize that it is a grassroots effort.
Dan Visnauskas, the coordinator of Fayette Forward, said volunteers have put southwestern Pennsylvania's watersheds on the map. "They feel for our resources," he said. "We really have naturalists."
Each of the watershed groups also emphasizes education.
One prominent example is the effort of Kelly Kruper, a board member of the Redstone Creek Clearwater Initiative and a teacher at Laurel Highlands High School. Kruper created a "watershed education" class at the school to study Redstone Creek.
Recently, 26 volunteers from the class and the school's ecology club removed 25 tons of trash from a section of the watershed near Oliver. The students will be at Friday's workshop.
A representative from the DEP's Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation will talk at 1 p.m. on abandoned mine drainage treatments, and on how watershed groups can raise both volunteers and funds. Pinizzotto will also speak in the afternoon Friday.
Registration for the Friday workshopat Fayette campus will start at 8:30 a.m. in the Williams building auditorium with the program scheduled to begin at 9 a.m.
There is no charge and reservations aren't required, but workshop participants are requested to contact the conservation district in advance so materials can be prepared.
For more information, contact the Fayette County Conservation District at (724) 438-4497.
The Western Pennsylvania Conservancy is sponsoring a separate symposium on watershed issues Saturday at California University of Pennsylvania. For more information on the symposium, call (412) 288-2777.
