Congratulations to these eastern Pennsylvania colleagues

Congratulating a Pocono ally on twenty-five years
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

Bernie McGurl is being honored this month for his 25-plus years of work improving the health and quality of the Lackawanna River and its 350-square mile watershed. Leading the Lackawanna River Corridor Association, he's improved the water quality and aquatic diversity in the Lackawanna River, created a riverside network of trails, reclaimed abandoned mine lands, and been the face of the river in Scranton and beyond.

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.

Cleaning a Pocono stream

What's in the water??? PennFuture and Brodhead Watershed Association worked together on that question in a federal case involving a Pocono Mountains stream and a sewer plant discharge. The case was settled in 2012 -- and a recent editorial in the Pocono Record lauded the kind of work that will soon begin paying off for humans and trout.

In early 2012, PennFuture and the Brodhead Watershed Association (BWA) reached a settlement with the Mount Pocono Municipal Authority to resolve the federal lawsuit filed in late 2010 against the authority for more than 500 permit violations. The federal consent decree -- in layperson's language, the enforceable requirements -- gave the authority to a timeline to reduce its discharge of treated sewage to Forest Hills Run. This stream is designated as High Quality, a special classification that entitles it to enhanced protection. But because of the sewage plant pollutions, the stream was added to the state’s official list of impaired streams in 2002. The water temperature was so warm that it posed risks to trout and other aquatic life, and the temperature also contributed to growth of a particularly nasty substance called sewage fungus.

As part of the settlement, the authority will reduce the volume of its discharge by applying increasing amounts of the discharge to an area of land where vegetation and soils will filter out pollutants. It also agreed to protect a section of open land for a trail and greenspace.

PennFuture and BWA could have pursued millions of dollars in civil penalties for the violations at the sewage treatment plant, but instead worked with the authority and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to develop a remedy that will provide the greatest benefit to water quality, and to the people who enjoy the stream and its surroundings.  Learn more about our legal work behind the scenes to bring this about.

Kate Gibbons is northeast Pennsylvania outreach coordinator for PennFuture, based in Wilkes-Barre.