Pennsylvania American Water is launching an ecological restoration initiative on the grounds of its suburban Pittsburgh solids dewatering plant, on Becks Run Road in the Carrick neighborhood of the City of Pittsburgh.

The project aims to better balance a portion of an urban ecosystem by eliminating non-native or invasive plant species and replacing them with plants, trees, and shrubs native to the region.

Invasive species, left unchecked, can imbalance an ecosystem by eradicating plants that birds and animals rely on for food and shelter. Utilizing native trees, flowering plants and shrubs will help to restore natural habitats and provide sustenance for wildlife, such as wild turkey or rabbits.

The display garden bed, on the company’s property along Becks Run Road, will be one of the most visible components of the project. Native plants, trees, shrubs and wildflowers in this display garden will add beauty and visual interest, inherent to Penn's Woods, along a busy urban thoroughfare.

Native plants require less maintenance and grooming and should grow heartily since they thrive in local soil and can weather successfully the local climate. The roots of the plants will also aid in controlling soil erosion, which presents pollution threats for waterways.

“American Water has developed a program to encourage incorporating habitat diversity on any of the existing company properties,” said the project coordinator, Pennsylvania American Water Quality Specialist Tom Trok, who works at the Hays Mine facilities.

“The project at the Hays Mine Plant is a response to this program. Complementing the obvious benefits of helping to balance the ecosystem in our own small way, the project will demonstrate the creative possibilities for ecological urban landscaping,” said Trok.

Pennsylvania American Water is working with Darrell Frey, owner of Three Sisters Farm in Sandy Lakes, Pa., who is providing guidance on the native plant selection and garden design at the Becks Run site. Frey’s knowledge of native plants is extensive.

At Three Sisters Farms, Frey and his staff propagate or ecologically harvest all the native plants that are sold. Ecological harvest rescues native plants from roadside ditches, flood plains or other areas where the plants would have been endangered.

Another important, but less publicly visible, component of the ecological restoration is the plantings of wildflower beds on hilly slopes that surround Pennsylvania American Water operational facilities and a raw water settling basin on the property. These native wildflower beds will begin an attempt to reverse the invasion of non-native species, such as Japanese knotweed, which have been growing on the slopes.

The plantings will beneficially use a approximately a five-acre portion of a nine-acre parcel of land, owned by the company, to further restore the local ecosystem so that it can be more in balance with what nature intended for western Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania American Water will also be contributing its award-winning and Department of Environmental Protection-approved water treatment residual material for use as a soil amendment in the beds.

The water treatment residual material is similar to topsoil and consists of the silt and sediment from the Monongahela River raw water and harmless by-products from the water treatment process. The fertile nature of the residual material makes it an excellent soil amendment medium for revegetation and to other earthwork activities.

Pennsylvania American Water’s residual program has been honored with the Governor’s Award for Environmental Excellence.

“Pennsylvania American Water is committed to being a good environmental steward and views this ecological restoration project as an opportunity to provide nature with a helping hand in re-establishing itself amidst urbanization and to aid in protecting the waterways that impact the source of drinking water for our communities,” said Pennsylvania American Water Communications and Corporate Responsibility Specialist Phil Cynar. “It’s a privilege—and the right thing to do—to utilize the resources available to Pennsylvania American Water—to protect and preserve a small portion of the planet that we call home.”

Volunteers from Pennsylvania American Water and the Pennsylvania Resources Council will plant the display garden and begin seeding the wildflower slope garden beds on June 2.

More information about the garden’s specifications can be found online.

5/19/2006