Volunteers to clean up dump as part of River Sweep
John Piwowar believes farmers, like him, make the best conservationists. Clean water and fertile soil are dear to their hearts and essential for their businesses to survive.
But Piwowar says community volunteers like the members of the non-profit Greater Redstone Cleanwater Initiative, of which he is a member, are the keys to successful conservation.
Volunteers from Fayette County and the rest of Southwestern Pennsylvania as well as five other states will lead a massive conservation effort on Saturday during the 13th Annual River Sweep.
While Piwowar is coordinating the group’s clean up of an illegal dumpsite near his farm along Vances Mill Road and Rankin Run, which is a Redstone Creek tributary; the Mountain Watershed Association will be cleaning up the Donegal Hiking Trail and Allegheny Energy will lead a sweep in Point Marion.
Piwowar said the Rankin Run site has been a favorite of scofflaws because it is both secluded and accessible.
“That’s been one of the worst sites because it’s secluded. We have toilets, refrigerators, mattresses – it’s terrible,” Piwowar said. “It’s one of many (illegal dumps). We have worse in the watershed. This one is accessible.”
Wearing work gloves and insect repellant provided by Allegheny Energy, high school students in the Laurel Highlands High School Ecology Club and Watershed Class will comprise the main work force. They will work along Greater Redstone members and any other volunteer who shows up, beginning at 9 a.m.
“We have some really great kids in the community. This brings out the best in them,” Piwowar said. “When they participate in this program, they claim ownership of these streams.”
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission sponsor the six-state sweep of the Ohio River watershed. Corporate sponsors from Pennsylvania like Allegheny Energy, AK Steel, BASF, Duquesne Light, Dominion, ExxonMobile, Koppers, Neville Chemical Co., NOVA Chemical, Tri-Sate River Products, Toyota, Ashland and Speedway.
The other states involved are Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, West Virginia and Illinois. More than 2,400 miles of shoreline in all six states were cleaned last year.
In Pennsylvania, 1,700 bags of trash and more than 2,00 tires were removed from banks of the Ohio, Allegheny, Beaver, Monongahela and Youghiogheny rivers and their tributaries.
“The River Sweep is a partnership, businesses and citizens working together for cleaner and safer rivers and streams,” DEP spokeswoman Betsy Mallison said. “The key to making it a success is the people of Western Pennsylvania.”
Other counties where River Sweep project are scheduled include Allegheny, Beaver, Greene, Somerset, Washington and Westmoreland.
While the Greater Redstone group will be focusing on Rankin Run Saturday, it is a small part of a larger effort to restore Redstone Creek.
Piwowar said the group has applied for grants through the DEP’s Growing Greener program to clean up two abandoned mine discharges into the creek. He said the Phillips discharge empties 6,000 gallons per minute of pollution into the creek.
Much of the creek water is cooled by a canopy of tree cover, which would make it an excellent fishery if it wasn’t polluted with mine discharge, he said.
He said U.S. Steel and H.C. Frick Coal and Coke Co. mined near and, in some locations, directly underneath the creek about 100 years ago.
“The result is a fouled stream for 100 years and it is possible to clean it up,” Piwowar said. “We know that now.”
Illegal dumping and sewage are also problems in the creek, he said. Last April, Greater Redstone volunteers pulled 94 tires from a 300-foot section of the creek and 37 shopping carts were removed the year before.