PA Environment Digest

The Westmoreland County Conservation District is sponsoring a day-long bus tour to some of the most important conservation features in the Jacobs Creek Watershed on October 2.

Flowing water can be a good thing or trouble, as the same currents that provide fun, recreation activities such as boating and trout fishing, can also, if swollen and unchecked, cause the waterway to overflow its banks, threatening property and lives.

The Jacobs Creek Watershed – a 98-square-mile area of land that skirts along the southern edge of Westmoreland County – has historically suffered frequent and devastating floods, and compromised water quality due to land uses from farming to development.

But today, this watershed is making positive strides, thanks in part to some human intervention, including a watershed-wide flood-control project that is one of only a few like it in the entire United States, and the efforts of individual landowners to protect streambanks.

The tour will begin at 9:00 a.m. at the Donegal Community Center, 113 Community Center Lane, in Donegal, and then travel to:

-- Donegal Township -- to see one of the first farms in Westmoreland County to receive Growing Greener funds to install measures that protect the banks of a stream (Jacobs Creek) from erosion, and so improve water quality for everyone living downstream;

-- Bridgeport – to see one of the four measures to control flooding in this watershed: the Bridgeport Dam, an earthen dam built to lower the elevation of flood water from Jacobs Creek;

-- Scottdale -- to see another of the four flood-control measures: a channel designed to safely move water through this town of homes and industries and railroad lines, much of which was built on a floodplain;

-- Mount Pleasant -- to see how a severe erosion problem that threatened the Willows Park recreation area (a starting point of the new Coal and Coke walking trail) was solved with a combination of rock, matting, and live tree stakes; and

-- Mount Pleasant Township -- to see why improving Ridge Road, near the boundary between Mount Pleasant and Donegal townships, reduced pollution in a nearby stream, a tributary of the Loyalhanna Creek.

The tour will conclude at approximately 2:30 p.m. when the bus returns to the Donegal Community Center.

Financial and other support for this project is provided by the Pennsylvania Association of Conservation Districts through its education grant from the Department of Environmental Protection under Section 319 of the Clean Water Act, administered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Cost for the tour is $20, and includes coffee and donuts at the Donegal Community Center in the morning, lunch, and bus transportation for the tour from and to the Donegal Community Center.

Space is limited and registration and payment must be received by September 24. The registration form as well as electronic payment capability can be found on the District’s website.

Questions can be directed to Christie at 724-837-5271 ext. 210, or send email to: christie@wcdpa.com.

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