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Spotlight - EPCAMR Summer Intern Helps With Several Mine Reclamation Projects
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Justyna Sacharzewska, who is a 2010 Wilkes University graduate with a major in Earth and Environmental Science, will be working as a summer intern by the Eastern Coalition for Abandoned Mine Reclamation.
During her time at Wilkes she was a part of the Ground Deformation Survey Team which has assessed relative ground displacement due to volcanic activity in Yellowstone National Park by use of survey-grade GPS receivers.
She has also assisted with a research on carbon isotope analysis of plants, vertebrates and invertebrates found on a Superfund site in Palmerton, Carbon County, PA. As her senior project at Wilkes, she has worked on assessing the special distribution of macro-nutrients in soils within the Harvey’s Lake watershed in Dallas, Pa using high accuracy GPS receivers and GIS analysis. The findings of the senior project were then summarized into a report for the Environmental Advisory Council of Harvey’s Lake.
Justyna is a native of Poland and has lived in the Mountain Top, Pa area for the last decade.
Robert E. Hughes, Executive Director-EPCAMR explains, that “many Polish immigrants came to Northeastern PA to work in the Anthracite coal mines. Justyna will have the opportunity to learn about not only our Anthracite History, but the history of her past culture and its influence on coal mining and contributions to our Region from a cultural and socio-economical perspective.”
Justyna will be working part-time, fulfilling about 20 hours per week, working with the EPCAMR Staff. She is familiar with GIS and has already completed in her first day on the job a GIS map of a complete list of municipalities in the Wyoming Valley where EPCAMR is actively monitoring boreholes into the underground abandoned mines to measure the elevations of the mine pool water over the next year or so in partnership with the Susquehanna River Basin Commission.
EPCAMR is preparing to conduct a Borehole Awareness Campaign within these communities so that these very important monitoring locations, many of which are right in the middle of municipal streets or along the shoulders of the municipal roads, are not paved over by their local road departments. She will also be putting together another similar list and GIS Map for the Lackawanna Valley.
Justyna has come on board just in time for us to begin to prepare for our 13th Annual Abandoned Mine Reclamation Conference in August and our 15th Anniversary Dinner/Fundraiser on August 4th, 2011.
She will be assisting the EPCAMR with planning and preparations as we close in on those dates. She’ll be assisting with putting together EPCAMR’s photo collage of past news media publicity and articles in the newspapers or magazines that we’ve appeared in over the last 15 years to showcase our positive work in the Anthracite Region and Northern Tier Bituminous Region of Northeastern PA.
She will also be assisting us with any Summer Environmental Education Programs that may come up and with processing, harvesting, drying, packaging, and marketing our iron oxide that is for sale and distribution.
Robert goes on to say…”put it this way, any opportunity that comes up for her to get her some hands-on, up close, personal experiences in the abandoned mine reclamation field, will be presented to her, and it’ll be up to her to make the most out of the experience and make some integral connections with our partners that might lead her to a full time job.”
We’re glad to have her on board and three days in she has already sampled over 20 boreholes in the Wyoming Valley, created a GIS Map for EPCAMR that was needed, and got a chance to go on a kayak trip on the Susquehanna North Branch from Tunkhannock to see several streams flow into the River, one of which, EPCAMR has had a hand in assessing and creating a Coldwater Heritage Conservation Plan, in Wyoming County, Bowman’s Creek Watershed.
It is a watershed that has been impacted heavily by acid deposition and episodic acidification and EPCAMR has worked with the Bowmans Creek Watershed Association, South Mountain Land Association, Wyoming and Luzerne County Conservation Districts, Stanley Cooper Chapter Trout Unlimited, and the Fish & Boat Commission on for many years to improve the water quality and fish habitat conditions of the watershed.
For more information, visit the EPCAMR website.
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6/13/2011 |
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