Since 1989, Brodhead Creek and Cherry Creek watershed in Monroe County have been watched over by a group of volunteers from the Brodhead Watershed Association (BWA). The association's extensive membership-supported work includes protecting natural resources through education and outreach; community programs; and training a corps of volunteer water monitors who regularly check the quality of their local Pocono streams. In 2012, PennFuture and BWA also secured major water quality benefits for the Poconos by suing – and then reaching a favorable settlement with – a sewage treatment plant that had more than 600 permit violations affecting Forest Hills Run.
Restoring a Superfund site back to nature
Further "down the 'pike," as we like to say, the Lehigh Gap Nature Center in Slatington just received a national award for their work on the contaminated Palmerton Zinc Superfund site. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recognized the Center for its work on improving wildlife habitat, which involved re-vegetation with native warm season grasses and a whopping 13,000 trees, including 4,000 of the nearly extinct American Chestnut. If you've ever traveled the Lehigh Tunnel, you've seen the once-decimated mountainside that today is being transformed into a wildlife habitat and natural oasis.
Recognizing a Lackawanna leader
PennFuture's work in broad coalitions is just one of the ways we engage with the community statewide. Brodhead Watershed Association and Lehigh Gap Nature Center are fellow members of the Delaware River Watershed Coalition (we're a steering committee member), and the Lackawanna River Corridor Association is a longtime member of the Choose Clean Water Coalition, which PennFuture leads in Pennsylvania. Learn more about this work on our website's water section.
Kate Gibbons is PennFuture's northeastern Pennsylvania outreach coordinator and is based in Wilkes-Barre.
