Volunteers Planting Wetland - Look for the Special Photo Feature Attached to This Story

Brian Okey, the modest, but focused president of the Aultman Watershed Association for Restoring the Environment (AWARE), listed all the grants and partners the Association put together in the last four years to cleanup their watershed and then paused.

“When you list them all like that, it’s pretty impressive,” sounding almost amazing himself.

Thanks to the Association and its partners, 5.5 tons of iron from an abandoned mine discharge will no longer flow untreated into Aultmans Run every year.

But that is only one project, Okey explained.

AWARE benefited from four Growing Greener grants, one for starting the association, another for a watershed assessment and two for individual projects—the SR 286 treatment system that’s now up and running and to design a solution for treating a major abandoned mine discharge to Reed’s Run, a tributary to Aultmans Run.

But it doesn’t stop there.

The group was named a Groundwater Guardian Community in 2001 for their partnerships with the local PA Cleanways Chapter on annual watershed cleanups and anti-litter efforts. They also received several grants from the Water Resources Education Network and a PA League of Women Voters to produce educational materials about watershed issues and a grant from the PA Organization for Watersheds and Rivers to put up stream identification signs.

And they kept adding partners.

“We aren’t as big as other organizations, so we have to rely on developing partnerships to get our work done,” said Okey “We partnered with PA Cleanways, EASI (Senior Environment Corps) and the Stream Team to get our early projects started and to do water monitoring. We benefited a lot from overlapping memberships.”

They went from zero members in 2000 to 140 in 2004.

The Indiana County Conservation District, DEP’s Cambria District Mining Office, the Western PA Conservancy Watershed Assistance Center, the Kiski-Conemaugh River Basin Alliance, Western PA Coalition for Abandoned Mine Reclamation and many others helped out.

Okey said he probably missed a few, but hoped he didn’t.

The SR 286 Project (named for a nearby state road) treats one of three large sources of acid mine drainage in the watershed. The other two-- Reeds Run and the McIntyre site on Neil Run-- both contribute significant mine water pollution to the watershed.

Stream Restoration Incorporated, a non-profit organization experienced in developing mine reclamation projects, Amerikohl Mining Inc., BioMost, Inc., the Stream Team and AWARE all cooperated to get a Growing Greener grant to design, permit, and install the SR 286 passive treatment system, the first in the Aultmans Run Watershed.

The project was finished early last year and the wetlands planted last summer in a series of “work days” by Association members.

Aultmans Run is classified as a trout-stocked fishery. One of the main goals of AWARE is to improve the health of Aultmans Run to become a viable fishery throughout its entire length.

Samples taken last year show iron discharges have dropped from 15 mg/L to less than 4 mg/L as a result of the SR 286 Project, a dramatic improvement.

Aultmans Run Watershed is located a short 15 or 20 minute drive from Indiana University of Pennsylvania where Okey is a Professor of Geography and Regional Planning and teaches a course in fresh water resources.

“I encourage (or coerce) students into helping with projects and try to get other faculty involved,” said Okey. “The watershed is a very good field laboratory that’s close by.”

One of his fellow faculty members even used Aultmans Watershed for a lesson in social geography, having his students collect oral histories of the area, including stories about the mining days in the watershed.

Okey sees good challenges ahead-- finishing the Reed’s Run design, putting up the Association’s first webpages and joining up with the Todd Bird Club to promote bird watching and recreational opportunities with Conemaugh Lake.

“Aultmans Run flows right into Conemaugh Lake so there is a natural tie in to recreation opportunities offered there,” Okey explained.

“Getting people involved in the watershed, not only students, but the people that live here is a continuing challenge,” Okey said. “It’s easy for a core group of people to burn out, but so far that hasn’t happened. We’re going to keep up our momentum.”

And judging from their record of so far, we have no doubts they will!

For more information contact AWARE through Brian Okey, at 724-357-3766 or by email: Brian.Okey@iup.edu .

1/21/2005