The Buffalo Creek (Washington County) and the Friends of Mingo Creek Watershed Association (Montgomery County) celebrate Watershed Awareness Month with significant events.

Buffalo Creek: On May 22 the Buffalo Creek Watershed Festival will be held at the former Dutch Fork Lake near Claysville

The restoration of Dutch Fork Lake will be the theme of this third annual Festival that will feature a free kids’ casting tournament sponsored by Cabela’s. First and second place prizes will be awarded in age groups 7 - 11 and 12 - 15 years of age. Cabela’s will also put on fly casting demonstrations.

Another festival feature will be Bob Heyer and the Cabin Fever String Band. The popular Wheeling-based band will get the toes tapping with Old Time Mountain Music and will also accompany the youth meadow dancers of Bob and Kathy Tomlinson.

Three River Birding Club of Pittsburgh will hold bird walks throughout the day. Unlike last year’s “walks,” which were by canoe on the then-existing lake, this year’s will actually be walks. Special presentations and activities will include eco-exploration and animal programs by the Oglebay Schrader Center and the Oglebay Good Zoo.

Meadowcroft Village crafters and independent crafters and artists will give demonstrations, and historian William Garbarino will discuss area history. The BCWA will hold an adult fee-charged casting contest with prizes.

Organizations presenting educational displays will include the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, Washington County Parks and Recreation, the Pennsylvania Game Commission, Jose Taracido –California University of PA, Three Rivers Birding Club, Buffalo Valley Alliance, Wheeling Creek Watershed Conservancy, and Jacobs Birdhouses.

For further information, contact Ted Flickinger at 724-663- 4292, e-mail to tflick@cobweb.net , or Kevin Barletta, 724-484-0516, e-mail to kevinbarletta@msn.com.

Mingo Creek: On April 23, a group of 5 adults and five students set out early to help out Friends of Mingo Creek with their annual Earth Day clean up of the Mingo creek watershed.

Despite threatening rains, the band of volunteers dispersed to different sections of the creek and managed to clean more than a dozen large bags of miscellaneous bottles and cans and junk from entering the stream, cleaning our roads and opens spaces from the back of the local high school property down to the confluence of the Schuylkill River and up stream towards Royersford.

Six years ago Friends of Mingo Creed held the first clean up and each year we find less trash because volunteers living along the creek keep their sections clean.

Upper Providence township removed the collected trash and they continue to support Friends of Mingo Creek to help keep the waterways clean.

Some of the participating students were from Spring-Ford Area School District, working on an "eco fair project" seeing the effects of littering on the environment.

Five Royersford Elementary students cleaned the school property along with their parents. Students in the district were encouraged by Mary DeAngelis, their environmental teacher to do some type of project with their parents in their own yards and neighborhoods, like plant a tree or butterfly garden. Check out Ms. DeAngelis’ website for more information.

This year to make students in the watershed more aware of the local streams, Friends of Mingo Creek is holding another "stream naming" contest in Upper Providence Township where there are about six tributaries of the Mingo creek and 5 streams that drain directly to the Schuylkill River that are unnamed.

Students will have a chance to choose a name and then go before the supervisors for their approval before the names are submitted to the mapping company. The process will take several months to complete then the township will install signs with the names of the streams.

For more information on Friends of Mingo Creek activities, contact Alice Lang by email to Mingowatershed@aol.com

5/6/2005