The PA American Water Company announced the award of nine grants totaling $34,000 as part of the company’s 2010 Environmental Grant Program. 

-- Friends of McConnells Mill State Park is receiving a grant to help protect the Slippery Rock Creek Watershed from erosion and sedimentation by reforesting two critical areas. The project will rely on local volunteers to plant trees, shrubs and warm season grasses to enhance the sites, which have been cleared due to disease and safety issues with the established trees.

-- Pennsylvania Environmental Council is being awarded a grant to undertake an invasive species removal, riparian buffer planting and educational program involving Pennsylvania American Water’s property along Huntsville Creek. The project will improve the creek’s water quality and educate volunteers about healthy riparian buffers. In addition to removing invasive Japanese Knotweed that contributes to stream bank erosion, the organization will replant the area with native species, trees and shrubs.

-- Yellow Breeches Watershed Association is receiving a grant to purchase water-testing equipment for monitoring the health of Yellow Breeches Creek. With the new equipment, the YBWA monitoring teams, including retired science teachers and professionals from the Capital Area Pennsylvania Senior Environmental Corps, will have the technical capability to compile more accurate data and develop a comprehensive look at trends affecting the creek’s health.

-- Audubon, Pennsylvania is being awarded a grant to develop and implement an educational program called “Wild About Our Watershed” for students in the Norristown School District. The hands-on program will increase the students’ knowledge of watersheds and local waterways, including field trips to Perkiomen Creek to monitor and evaluate the creek and help restore it through clean-up events and habitat plantings. The organization will offer the program to schools across Montgomery County, with a special emphasis on the under served and diverse population of Norristown.

-- Keystone College is being awarded a grant to support the college’s Watershed Explorers Course for K-6 teachers. The hands-on, science-based course examines various aspects of watershed concepts and provides teachers with the training and tools necessary to inspire their students to be good stewards of the environment. Course topics include human impacts on the watershed, applied stream ecology and water quality monitoring.

-- South Park Township is receiving a grant to enable township officials to expand the clean-up of creek beds and banks along Piney Fork and Peters Creeks, as part of its stream clean-up program. The grant will provide the tools to be used by volunteers for clean-up activities, as well as help fund tire and trash disposal.

-- Lackawanna River Corridor Association is receiving a grant to help the association, its partners and volunteers clean up illegal dumpsites along the Lackawanna River, including a 4.3-acre former railroad parcel in Scranton and a three-acre abandoned mine site in Dickson City. After removing debris and recycling tires and scrap metal, the organization will seed and mulch the sites.

-- Yardley Borough Environmental Advisory Council is being awarded a grant to assist the borough in establishing a rain garden at the Orchard Hill basin. The project will reduce the impact of the residential development’s stormwater run-off on the local watershed. The rain garden is a landscaped area that contains native plants and vegetation, replacing lawn areas. It fills with water during rainstorms and allows the water to gradually filter into the ground instead of running off into storm drains.

-- Lemoyne Borough is being awarded a grant to support volunteers in applying markers and stencils on approximately 300 stormwater inlets. The project will help raise public awareness about how pollutants reach the Susquehanna River and Chesapeake Bay, while helping prevent unwanted dumping of contaminants in the municipal storm sewer system. The borough will partner on the project with the Boy Scouts, including a local Eagle Scout candidate.

4/26/2010