PA Environment Digest

Share this:

Foundation For Pennsylvania Watersheds Seeks Next Executive Director - John Dawes Retiring

The Board of the Foundation for Pennsylvania Watersheds is now seeking qualified candidates for the position of Executive Director.

The long-time force behind the Foundation and support for local abandoned mine drainage treatment and reclamation projects as well as several rounds of reauthorization of the federal abandoned mine reclamation fee and the original and successful expansions of the Growing Greener Watershed funding program John Dawes is retiring.

The Foundation is a grantmaking foundation that invests in local efforts to protect healthy, natural streams, to clean up pollution and to restore degraded wildlife habitat.

FPW is a source of matching funds for local, state and federal grants. It provides matching grant funds to both small and large groups and organizations throughout much of the Commonwealth.

To date, FPW has invested $15 million to leverage $185.6 million in matching funds across the state and awarded 1,607 grants to nearly 300 organizations.

In this work, FPW has restored 737 miles of AMD impacted streams, restored nearly 588,000 linear feet of stream buffers, and implemented nearly 93,000 linear feet of in-stream habitat improvement. As an environmental leader, FPW has worked nationally to ensure funding for mine reclamation continues.

Key achievements have included work to secure $1.4 billion to address Pennsylvania’s mining legacy of more than 185,000 acres of unsafe, mine-scarred lands and 5,500 miles of streams devoid of life.

Over the next several years, FPW will be expanding its capacity to support key activities critical to the health of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Specifically, the next Executive Director will expand the organization’s capabilities to assist the Department of Environmental Protection’s Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation in the distribution of increased funding to the Commonwealth resulting from recent legislation, and to provide enhanced grantee and agency partner support.

During its history, FPW has secured a large percentage of funding needed to address the degradation of abandoned mine lands (AML) and acid mine drainage (AMD) throughout the state of Pennsylvania.

Much of this funding is from the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE), the Abandoned Mine Lands Economic Revitalization program (AMLER), and from the 2022 Bi-partisan Infrastructure Legislation (BIL) or Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which resulted in total funding of $297M in FY 2023.

To deploy these funds into “on-the-ground” projects, FPW was selected to administer AMLER funds by BAMR to demonstrate its ability to meet reporting requirements using federal dollars, and it was successful in doing so.

Signed into law in 2022, The STREAM Act allows for up to 30% of a state’s BIL funding (set at $245 million for 15 years) to go into a separate state set-aside account for acid mine drainage treatment, for mine fires, and Operation, Maintenance & Rehabilitation (OM&R) of existing AMD treatment systems.

These resources will be available to municipalities, Conservation District offices, watershed associations, FPW, the Eastern and Western PA Coalitions for Abandoned Mine Reclamation and other citizen led groups, such as land trusts.

Additionally, FPW has an opportunity in the upcoming Farm Bill to enhance the funding for County Conservation District offices, through the proposed “Increased TSP Access Act of 2023”.

Like the STREAM Act, this legislation is an outgrowth of work and research performed by philanthropy. Endorsements are national in scope, and the bill is to help USDA’s projected need in hiring between 3,000 and 4,000 employees over the next two years to implement USDA conservation programs and provide technical assistance to farmers.

The ideal candidate will have a background that includes a high-level of strategic conservation / environmental leadership and management combined with a sophisticated understanding of relationship-driven philanthropy, partnership, and constituent management.

Proven success in raising significant resources from foundations and public entities on behalf of the mission and organization is required.

The preferred candidate will not only have to be a strategic leader but will understand the mechanics of a small nonprofit with limited resources.

By staying up to date with effective tactics for reaching environmental goals, particularly through engaging with other watershed conservation associations, Conservation Districts, and others, the leader will help better position FPW in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Click Here for a Position Guide and instructions on how to apply by Kittleman Associates.

(Photo: Little Conemaugh River in Cambria County before and after. A River Reborn documentary.).

Related Articles [More Later]:

-- Western PA Environmental Lifetime Achievement Awards: John Dawes, John Schombert [PaEN]

-- John Dawes Receives PA Land Trust Assn. Lifetime Conservation Leadership Award [PaEN]

-- John Dawes Recognized With Federal Office Of Surface Mining ECHO Award [PaEN]

-- Rep. Stern, John Dawes Receive Susquehanna Watershed Protection Awards [PaEN]

-- John Dawes, Wild Resource Program Receive PAEP 2006 Karl Mason Awards [PaEN]

-- Dawes’ Huntingdon Farm Named Regional Environmental Stewardship Winner [PaEN]

-- John Dawes Urges Congress To Reauthorize Federal Abandoned Mine Reclamation Fee

-- Op-Ed: Federal Abandoned Mine Reclamation Trust Fund Can Be Reauthorized [PaEN]

-- John Dawes On Urgent Need To Reauthorize Federal Mine Reclamation Funding - Video [PaEN]