The Anthracite Region Independent Power Producers Association this week announced the award of $5,000 in grants to watershed groups working to reclaim and improve the environment.

This year’s recipients include Mehoopany Creek Watershed Association, Wyoming County; Newport Township Crime Watch, Luzerne County, Luzerne County Conservation District and Sewickley Creek Watershed Association, Westmoreland County.

Watershed groups like these represent one of the one of the fastest growing areas of community-based collaboration. Throughout the country, and they play an increasingly prominent role in environmental management.

Awards are granted under the guidance and administration of Eastern and Western PA Coalitions of Abandoned Mine Reclamation. EPCAMR and WPCAMR are non-profit associations organized to encourage the reclamation, remediation, and redevelopment of lands and streams.

ARIPPA members have donated a total of $60,000 to various deserving volunteer watershed and conservancy groups actively battling Pennsylvania’s mine legacy problem

Remediation projects are costly and long-term endeavors with costs averaging between $10-20,000 per acre, according to the Pennsylvania Mining Reclamation Advisory Board. The ARIPPA Reclamation Awards are designed to help watershed groups continue their volunteer efforts toward improving our environment.

ARIPPA is a non-profit trade association representing alternative energy plants that remove coal refuse from AML areas, convert it into alternative energy.  The ash by-product is then used to reclaim thousands of acres of mine-scarred lands and hundreds of miles of formerly dead streams back to their natural state, without any expenditure of tax dollars.

To date over 200 million tons of coal refuse have been converted into alternative energy by member plants.

For more information, visit the Anthracite Region Independent Power Producers Association website.  Click Here to view ARIPPA’s Legacy of Coal video.

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