|
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Kettle Creek Watershed Association Contact: Environmental Results: First of several passive AMD treatment systems completed. 4 stream habitat improvement projects completed. |
Assessment & Planning Residents and Visitors Take Action to Protect a Declining Fishery
Local residents and visitors established the Kettle Creek Watershed Association in 1997 in response to declining fisheries, due in part to flood events over the past 30 years. In 1998, Trout Unlimited designated the Kettle Creek watershed as a "Home Rivers" project, committing more than $240,000 and a full-time watershed director to improve upper watershed habitat and initiate lower watershed acid mine drainage remediation. Kettle Creek's acid mine drainage assessment and treatment plan for the lower watershed is the first of its kind in Pennsylvania to be developed on such a comprehensive, watershed-wide scale. With residents and interns volunteering to sample and monitor 33 sites on Kettle Creek and its main tributaries, the association is developing baseline data to assess the overall health of the watershed. A team of 11 graduate students from Penn State University's Center for Watershed Stewardship is lending technical support by inventorying ecological and socio-economic parameters and developing a GIS database for the watershed. Over the past two years, the association has completed four stream habitat improvement projects, restoring more than 2,700 feet of streambank and in-stream habitat. And, Kettle Creek recently made its national television debut in a segment on Trout Unlimited Television - a conservation-based fishing show broadcast on ESPN2. "Our partnership with national Trout Unlimited
has been priceless. Together, we look forward to achieving improved fisheries
in the upper watershed and restoring a healthy aquatic ecosystem through
acid mine drainage treatment in the lower watershed." |
|
Copyright © 2001, Environmental Fund for Pennsylvania
|
