Howdy River Folks,
We’re off to another great start this year. I’ve got news on Conowingo and on the Incinerator Ash issue but let me start with some volunteer opportunities.
Our first activity of the year is coming up on February 16th. We will be doing a stream cleanup (weather permitting) with the Watershed Alliance of York on Kreutz Creek in York County from 10 am to 2 pm. Please email for more directions. Let us know if you would like to set up a cleanup for your area.
Also supported by the Watershed Alliance of York is the WAY Winter Break Wine and Cheese Party at Moondancer Winery, just south of Wrightsville, on February 24th from 1 to 4. As an organizational member of WAY all of our members and volunteers are invited! Please RSVP to me.
We are looking for folks who are interested in construction site and stormwater enforcement for a training session at the Maryland School of Law in Baltimore on February 29th, 9 to 5 pm. If you would like to help with our pollution patrols to reduce land erosion please contact us soon so we can reserve you a seat.
In the news, PA Governor Rendell has agreed to fund the first of the studies needed to move toward a solution to the sediment build-up at the Conowingo and other Lower Susquehanna hydroelectric dams. I’ve talked to some other folks out there and it sounds like we are getting direct credit for getting some momentum behind this issue. I thank you all for your support, particularly those that signed on as supporters of this effort. We still need folks to sign on, so please check out the letter at our website,
www.LowerSusquehannaRiverkeeper.org . We also had a great Op-Ed piece in the Harrisburg Patriot to alert our citizens and lawmakers to the need for action on what some have called the biggest single threat to the Chesapeake.
Last Saturday I attended the party for Franklin and Marshall’s Professors Merritts and Walter and the publication of their work on legacy sediments in Science Magazine. This work that explains why our streams have so much sediment buildup and erosion, also gives support to our concerns that reducing erosion from land runoff will likely not be enough to stop the buildup and overflow of sediment at Conowingo dam. Their work shows that nearly 40 million tons of sediment (and the accompanying phosphorus) is stored along the banks of just the Conestoga River. At least some of this sediment, possibly up to 50%, is ripe for erosion into the Susquehanna and Chesapeake. Multiply this throughout the Lower Susquehanna and we have decades and decades of work ahead of us. We need to take a new look at the costs of sediment removal at the dams, so again, please read the letter on our site and see if you or your group can sign on.
American Ash Recycling received a permit to process ash, but they can no longer spread it around Pennsylvania!!! We have effectively kept 2 million tons of toxin-laden incinerator ash from entering our environment! Thanks to everyone that helped in this effort.
Our financial work for 2007 is about complete, so if you have not received a receipt for your donation, please let us know. On that note, its time for some of us to renew our memberships, and perhaps get a few friends to join as well. Once again, the Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment is providing a match to all donations up to $40,000!!! But being a challenge grant, we need to raise that $40,000 to get the match. So please give what you can, and know that ALL donations will be DOUBLED!!!
We’ve been very busy and haven’t had a chance to update the website much, but this is the project for next week, so check out the updated site next week. For now I’ll give you a list of some of the events that we’ll be at that are coming up. Please contact us for more details on any event.
2/5 Penn State York 4:30 - Studying River Restoration with Dr. Bill Eaton
2/18 Annapolis, MD 12pm – River Lobby Day
2/20 Shrewsbury, PA 7 pm- Public Sludge education event
2/21 York, PA 6 pm- Martin Library Environmental Forum
2/28 Columbia, PA 11:30 am- Rivertownes Plan unveiling
2/29 Baltimore 9 to 5- Maryland School of Law Stormwater and Construction Enforcement Training
3/1 Donegal, PA 4 pm – Donegal Sportsman’s Show
