The Butler County Conservation District recently honored Margaret H. Dunn with the Conservation Educator of the Year Award at the Butler Farm-City Banquet sponsored by the Butler Rotary and the Agricultural Community.

David Lamperski, Conservation District Director, remarked on Dunn’s “hands-on” approach to education and the success of the public-private partnership approach with the mining industry and local, state, and federal agencies, landowners, students, and volunteers.

Dunn noted that for more than a decade the Slippery Rock Watershed Coalition and Stream Restoration Inc., a non-profit organization, have focused on providing educational opportunities relating to environmentally-friendly techniques to address the impacts from abandoned coal mine drainage in Butler County.

Recognizing the talents of the people in the area to effectively “get the word out” and receiving support from volunteers and funding from the public and private sectors, an estimate of over 20,000 people of all ages and interest levels have benefited.

The people that have generously shared their gift of teaching include: Dave Johnson and Wil Taylor at the Jennings Environmental Education Center by demonstrating innovative passive treatment technology, by writing Accepting the Challenge, a primer about the history, cause, and solutions to abandoned mine drainage, and by working in partnership with RiverQuest to provide student education activities for the annual Ohio River Watershed Celebration; Bob Beran of Beran Environmental Services, Inc. by providing opportunities to school students and youth groups to plant and learn about the value of wetlands; Melissa Busler, by writing and editing various student activity books and the monthly newsletter, “The Catalyst”; Dave Lamperski of the Connoquenessing Watershed Alliance by supporting the installation of a passive treatment system for the environmental education program at Camp Lutherlyn; and Dr. Fred Brenner of Grove City College, Dr. Dean DeNicola of Slippery Rock University, and Dr. Helen Boylan of Westminster College, who provide on-going student research projects to support the watershed restoration efforts.

Link: Margaret Dunn on Watershed Partnerships

11/23/2007