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Feature- From Superfund To Super Habitat: Lehigh Gap Nature Center
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by Diane Husic and Dan Kunkle A miraculous transformation has occurred in eastern Pennsylvania. One of the largest Superfund (toxic chemical contaminated) sites east of the Mississippi River has been transformed into the Lehigh Gap Nature Center—a refuge for wildlife and for people. Air pollution stemming from zinc smelting operations in the town of Palmerton in Carbon County led to serious environmental damage; in part because of the nature of the pollutants (acid deposition and toxic metals) and partially as a result of the geography of the Lehigh Gap area.
Here, the Kittatinny Ridge rises 1,000 feet from the valley floors, forming a barrier that trapped the smog devoid of vegetation, and the topsoil, contaminated by toxic metals, once held in place by the forests, had washed into the river leaving more than 2,000 acres of barren moonscape. In 1983, the area was added to the National Priorities List for Superfund by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
As part of the Superfund requirements, there were three important goals for the site in order to minimize further risk to humans and the environment: 1) re-vegetate the area with native species; 2) stop the serious erosion of subsoil that continues to bring metals down-slope into the Lehigh River; and 3) sequester the toxic metals in the soil so they were no longer accessible to living organisms through uptake in the food web.
The area was too large and the terrain too steep to remove the contaminated earth and relocate it. To this end, in the early 1990s, a remediation method utilizing sewage sludge and fly ash waste was implemented on the slopes of the Kittatinny east of the Lehigh Gap. This method managed to make the mountainside green again, but did not meet all of U.S. EPA’s criteria for success, and the revegetation effort stagnated.
The process was deadlocked when our small conservation group, then known as the Wildlife Information Center, undertook a bold project to purchase 750+ acres on the ridge just west of the Lehigh River. The Wildlife Center’s plan was to purchase the land, re-vegetate it using models from nature, and develop the site into an environmental education and outdoor recreation area. We have succeeded and now do business as Lehigh Gap Nature Center.
Whatever would inspire a group of environmentally minded citizens to purchase a portion of a Superfund site? The Lehigh Gap Nature Center (LGNC) is all about location. The Gap is at the crossroads of the Kittatinny Ridge and Lehigh River, and of the Appalachian National Scenic Trail and the Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor Trail (D&L Trail).
The land (more than 750 acres) is located on the Kittatinny Ridge where the Lehigh River cuts through the ridge forming Lehigh Gap, which has a rich history involving early shipping and trade routes, and the birth of the Industrial Revolution in this country.
But perhaps of greater importance, the Kittatinny Ridge has international ecological importance as a migration corridor and stopover site for raptors and Neotropical songbirds and monarch butterflies, is an Important Bird Area in Pennsylvania, and is a high priority area for conservation for the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.
The ridge serves as a leading line for autumn migration of raptors including several species of concern in the state. It is important stopover habitat for migrating songbirds, nesting habitat for interior forest songbirds such as Wood Thrushes and Scarlet Tanagers, and an important wildlife corridor.
The ridge plays an extremely important role in hydrology—holding precipitation and allowing it to gradually seep through the ground—purifying it and minimizing surface runoff into the Lehigh River. The ridge is also important as a recreation area for people. Its slopes include several state game lands and state parks, and it is also home to Hawk Mountain Sanctuary. The world-famous Appalachian Trail follows the ridgetop through much of Pennsylvania.
The scarred and toxic section of the ridge presented problems for wildlife and those trying to enjoy the recreational opportunities in the region. But now, it is also home to the new Lehigh Gap Nature Center.
Our plan was met with skepticism by some, but we persisted with our vision and EPA approved our plan for re-vegetating the mountainside with native, mainly warm-season, grasses. The grasses have succeeded in meeting all three goals set forth by EPA. The grasses, with their extensive and deep root systems, are very effectively stopping erosion while providing excellent habitat for birds, insects and small mammals. These grasses take up the metals in low enough quantities as to be deemed safe for the bluebirds, kestrels, and snakes that feed off the insects and small mammals that
eat the grasses or their seeds.
While much of the attention to the site, including articles in national publications and a case study in a scholarly book, is centered on the grassland area that has been created from a barren moonscape, Lehigh Gap Nature Center includes a variety of other habitats that were not destroyed by the air pollution. These areas include riparian and upland forests, wetlands, ponds, a ridge-top savanna, and the Lehigh River.
As part of our stewardship of the land, we decided to perform an ecological assessment to establish a baseline of conditions on the site so that we could document and understand changes in the future and develop appropriate management plans for the nature center.
We were fortunate to receive support from the Wild Resources Conservation Program to help us produce the assessment. We engaged, who in turn brought in ecologist Roger Latham (Continental Natural Lands Trust Conservation) and botanist Claudia Steckel (Botanical Inventory) to do a two-year study beginning in 2005.
This led to a report that emphasized vegetation mapping to document the plant communities of the site, but also included assessments of diversity, stewardship issues, educational and recreational opportunities, and recommendations.
Highlights of the 2007 ecological assessment report included:
-- 23 plant communities identified and mapped recognition of the statewide significance of the ridge-top savanna identified 374 plant species, four of which are listed as endangered in PA;
-- identified 48 lichen species compared to just 6 in 1974 light-trapped 403 insect species representing 73 families and 13 orders recorded more than 150 bird species
The full report is available online.
Along with these findings, we have also provided new habitat for grassland and scrub habitat bird species such as field sparrows, prairie warblers, and American kestrels, all of which nest in the restored habitat. Recently, we have discovered a southern grassland species, the blue grosbeak, nesting at Lehigh Gap.
We are also finding butterflies and flowering plants that are becoming established here and have learned that monarch butterflies use many of the fall flowering plants as nectar sources and the Lehigh Gap as a migration route. The site is also under consideration as a location for establishing a new population of the endangered regal fritillary butterfly, another grassland specialist.
The contaminated area also has surprisingly produced unusual conditions for certain plant species to flourish. Wild Bleeding Hearts (Dicentra eximia) is a statewide endangered species that grows abundantly all around the Lehigh Gap and Palmerton area. There are also populations of sandwort (Minuatia patula), the only ones known in the state. This small plant completes its annual lifecycle by the end of June and can accumulate (and tolerate) extremely high levels of zinc by mechanisms that are not yet understood.
A second study was begun with further support from the Wild Resource Conservation Program in 2008. The research for this study was completed in 2009 and the report is in production at this time. This second phase of the baseline ecological assessment is designed to fill in gaps in the information reported in the first study:
-- What are the current ecological conditions of Lehigh Gap Nature Center’s plant communities
with regard to additional vertebrate and invertebrate groups, selected microorganisms,and microclimate?
-- What are the ecological interactions occurring in both the grassland revegetation area and the
other habitats of the refuge?
-- How can we use this information to develop an adaptive management plan for maximizing biodiversity, and what monitoring protocols can be established to inform management in the future?
We have surveyed the native bees and other insect groups, macroinvertebrates in the ponds, microorganisms in the soil, amphibians and reptiles and continued our bird studies to document changes in avifauna relating to development of our grassland community. We are also evaluating the impacts of metals on water quality and on certain plants.
Projects are under way to monitor succession, enhance the grassland with flowering forbs, study the impact of deer browsing, and enhance the scrub habitat on a power line right-of-way that cuts through the property.
While all these projects are directed by LGNC staff and academic associates, the data collection and planting of the forbs is being carried out by interns, college students and faculty from 11 institutions, and by many citizen scientist volunteers.
For some projects, we have partnered with the US Geological Survey, the Monarch Watch program of the University of Kansas, and the local chapter of the Audubon Society. Four of the projects are being carried out by high school students who are members of our Naturalists Club. These young scientists were written up in the May 2009 edition of Audubon magazine as “WhizKids."
In Pennsylvania, the only known population of sandwort is found at LGNC.
Naturalists club members tag a monarch butterfly The revegetation work at Lehigh Gap has not only received national publicity, but has also received two national awards. In 2006, LGNC and the D&L Heritage Corridor were chosen for a U.S. Department of Interior Cooperative Conservation Partnership Award for the cooperative effort to turn a toxic wasteland into a thriving habitat and environmental education center.
LGNC Director, Dan Kunkle, was also selected as one of 40 TogetherGreen Fellows from around the nation by the National Audubon Society.
The baseline studies of the two ecological assessments have provided LGNC staff with the information needed to develop an adaptive management plan for the nature center. They will also inform future studies and provide support for ongoing research.
The Wild Resource Conservation Program has provided $76,000 in support for the two assessment projects, and that funding has been matched and complemented by several million dollars that have been spent on revegetation, management, invasive species control and habitat enhancement at Lehigh Gap Nature Center.
To our knowledge, this is the only Superfund site in the nation that has been converted into a community nature and environmental education center. To this end, the success of this project should become an exemplary model for the EPA as the Superfund program enters its third decade and has begun to focus not solely on risk management but also ecological revitalization.
The results produced by the assessment have statewide significance because of this site’s importance to the Kittatinny Ridge and Lehigh River.
The miracle of Lehigh Gap is an encouraging and hopeful story—historically and ecologically. Those stories are told in LGNC’s education program, which will be enhanced by a new visitor and education center to be completed by summer 2010. Readers are invited to come out and see firsthand what has been accomplished at Lehigh Gap.
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4/19/2010 |
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