A team of senior volunteers, under the umbrella of the Allegheny-Butler Pennsylvania Senior Environment Corps is playing a major role in assessing, protecting, and restoring the Pine Creek Watershed. The watershed covers 67.3 square miles and parts of 14 municipalities.

It all started three years ago when Mary Wilson, a member of the Pine Creek Watershed Assessment Steering Committee, realized that she could use the help of the Allegheny-Butler PaSEC program being directed by Marilyn Kraitchman, the volunteer coordinator of the Vintage Senior Center. The program now is hosted through the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy.

Because grant funding was less than anticipated for the Pine Creek assessment, Mary approached Marilyn about forming a partnership to have the assessment done by volunteers. Marilyn had developed multi-generational teams of volunteers to perform water quality monitoring in other watersheds in Allegheny and Butler counties and her vision fit perfectly with the Pine Creek project.

Mary then launched a campaign to recruit residents from the Pine Creek Watershed to volunteer for the program. Marilyn and her assistants developed an extensive strategy for training the volunteers through both classroom and field workshops. There were so many volunteers interested in participating in the water quality monitoring assessment, that they had to be trained in two stages.

Their partnership and the hard work of their volunteers resulted in the Pine Creek Watershed Assessment, Protection, and Restoration Plan that was completed in March 2005. The success of the program also has led to a partnership among Pine Creek, EPA and DEP to develop a model program for seniors and other volunteers to monitor watersheds for bacteria. The project begins this fall.

Senior volunteers continue to conduct chemical analyses of the watershed and are launching a Riparian and Channel Assessment Study, as well. The vast majority of volunteers are still actively engaged in the program.

“The success of the original project with the Allegheny-Butler PaSEC, and the professional approach to the initial training of volunteers by Marilyn Kraitchman, is enabling the Pine Creek Watershed to expand its work in ways it could not have done otherwise,” Wilson said. “The seniors live and work in the communities served by the watershed and they are excellent ambassadors for promoting watershed protection. It allows us to work with limited funds and fully engage the public in the project because the seniors live in the communities around the watershed.”

In 1997, Pennsylvania was the first state to establish a Statewide Senior Environment Corps under a partnership among DEP, the Department of Aging, and the Environmental Alliance for Senior Involvement. EASI established the Senior Environment Corps concept in the belief that older Americans have the talent, time and experience to tackle some of the most important environmental concerns in their communities.

Today, PaSECs cover 51 counties throughout the Commonwealth and EASI is the largest senior environmental action network in the world.

For more information visit the PA Senior Environment Corps webpage.

(Originally Published in the DEP Update)

12/15/2006