A diverse plant palette is essential for creating sustainable landscapes. While the woody plants we have traditionally used in riparian buffers remain critical to success, exploring a wider range of species can offer numerous benefits. By incorporating underutilized plants like Symphoricarpus albus (snowberry), and Catalpa speciosa (cigar tree), we can enhance biodiversity, improve water health, and provide habitat for wildlife. How we evaluate whether a plant is worth being incorporated into a planting can be a difficult decision. Factors like plant hardiness and resilience, growth habit, and ecological value should all be considered. This presentation will delve into the advantages of expanding our plant palette, how to select new species, and showcase specific species that deserve greater recognition.

This presentation will reflect on the lessons learned from a successful multi-community partner watershed restoration project and touch upon the resulting educational opportunities. The sequence of events that led to the decision to go from a Pond to Floodplain Park resulted from various stakeholder elements that needed to come together to make it happen. Post-construction, long-term monitoring was essential to help ensure project success, whereby stream and wetland health improved. This included some adaptive management to address human and environmental factors. Also important to the project’s success was identifying an operating entity that, in partnership with the municipality, would help steward the land to ensure proper management and oversight of the watershed. The success of this project continues to provide educational opportunities at all levels. A student-led project at the collegiate level will be discussed, focusing on a sustainability field-based assignment located within the Angelica Watershed. Overall, the Angelica project is one element of a broader watershed-level effort at stream restoration throughout the county. The ultimate aim is to work together to create connections among projects and how they collectively can work across the waterway network to maximize environmental benefits and water resource availability in a synergistic approach.

The Senior Environment Corps (SEC) at Center-In-the-Park Senior Center is a group of citizen scientists that have been monitoring water quality of local Philadelphia streams for 25 years. We have utilized chemical testing using field kits, bacterial testing to determine E. coli levels, and, lately, macroinvertebrate analysis. This presentation shares our latest work on the Monoshone and Wissahickon Creeks, specifically on the impact of a stormwater outfall on the health of the Monoshone and the impact of effluent from the Ambler Wastewater Treatment Plant on the Wissahickon. The SEC has expanded their efforts into air quality monitoring in Northwest Philadelphia with the help of a grant from Philadelphia’s Office of Sustainability to purchase air monitoring equipment. Specifically, we are in the process of installing air monitors near the SEPTA Combined Heating and Power Plant in the Nicetown area in response to the concerns of residents over potential pollution emitted by the plant. Though this project is in the fledgling stages, we share our current findings in this presentation. Finally, the SEC has partnered with the Center of Excellence in Environmental Toxicology at Penn to aid in monitoring lead levels in soil throughout the Philadelphia area. Those results are also shared in this presentation.

During this session, participants will learn about Pa. STEELS Standards and discuss opportunities for organizations to provide real-world environmental education experiences. The newly adopted standards emphasize students getting outdoors and investigating their local environment.

The speakers will discuss the creation and structure of the STEELS Standards and how the Meaningful Watershed Educational Experiences (MWEE) framework can help students meet these standards. Participants will also hear about how the Pennsylvania Environmental Literacy Network is working on statewide and local environmental education and literacy initiatives.

See Ruth Patrick’s landmark 1948 study of the Conestoga River basin, re-assembled for a modern audience, and learn how to apply the same techniques to your own historic maps and datasets.

Invasive crayfish are an emerging threat in the Delaware watershed. F. virilis is an invasive species of crayfish that is now established on the lower Delaware and is working its way towards the Allentown region. F. rusticus is another invasive crayfish that is established in the Saucon watershed and is working its way down to the Lehigh and potentially the Delaware river. These species have potential to impact any watershed along the Delaware that is not dammed, making documentation of our current crayfish and invertebrate populations an essential task for our watershed associations. Outside of the watershed associations citizen scientists can help by uploading crayfish sightings to inaturalist and imapinvasives. This presentation is also aimed at helping citizen scientists identify which crayfish characteristics are best to photograph in order for experts on inaturalist/imapinvasives to identify the species both native and invasive.

Angelica Creek is a small but storied stream that empties into the Schuylkill River in Reading. In the past, there were periods when much of the land was cleared for development, agriculture, and charcoal production. At other times, effort was made to protect and restore the land. The Angelica Creek Watershed Association (ACWA) began in 2015 and has evolved and broadened with many facets of watershed protection. As our ten-year anniversary approaches, we hope to celebrate and share a few lessons learned with others interested in improving their own watershed:

1. From Pond to Stream – Repercussions of dam removal on Angelica Creek

2. Nolde Forest EE Center – Can a family of forward thinkers change the world?

3. The Tale of Rabbit Run – The continuing saga of a ‘once-dumpy’ school side stream

4. Sponge John and other Under-rated Organisms – Who knew?

5. ‘Pooling’ Data – Daily monitoring of Mayfly Sensor Station water quality data triggers a hunt and discovery of water contamination.

Despite successes and community support, protections for Angelica Creek remain somewhat elusive. Are all streams in Southeast Pennsylvania doomed to a cycle of slow degradation with current legal protections?

Lake Hopatcong is the largest lake in New Jersey and forms the headwaters of the Upper Musconetcong River Watershed. The lake spans two counties and four municipalities, resulting in the need for collaboration between stakeholders. A Watershed Restoration Plan was developed in 2006 and was recently updated to the EPA Nine Element format to better reflect current conditions. The Nine Element Watershed Implementation Plan has helped obtain funding from numerous State and Federal grants for the design and implementation of projects identified in the plan. This presentation will discuss the lessons learned from working with dedicated stakeholders including local environmental groups and communities. A variety of restoration projects involving bank stabilization, green infrastructure, and stormwater management will be highlighted as well as their sources of funding. In-lake data from the 30-year continuous database will also be presented to highlight how the lake has responded to reductions in nutrient loading.

Academic institutions, agencies and other entities have conducted research to quantify the benefits that riparian (streamside) forest buffers can provide toward managing stormwater runoff, improving water quality, enhancing wildlife habitat, and achieving other conservation related objectives. Conservation practitioners recognize the importance of collaborating with landowners to ensure that they (practitioners) also consider their (landowner) objectives for their property/organization.

In August 2021, Martha’s Community Farm, Penn State Master Watershed Stewards, and the Montgomery County Conservation District partnered to explore the feasibility of establishing a “food forest” along the Perkiomen Creek to help address both water quality related objectives and food security needs of the greater community. Bringing such a vision to fruition involved analyzing existing site conditions, evaluating program funding constraints, understanding plant species’ requirements, and understanding future maintenance needs. It also required ensuring quality assurance and control during installation, establishing an effective monitoring and maintenance program, and engaging the community to understand and help meet their needs.

Broad-based partnership efforts, aided by significant volunteer involvement during the design and installation phases of the project, resulted in the establishment of a one-acre food forest, consisting of 340 native trees and shrubs (several of which are edible) along Perkiomen Creek at Martha’s Community Farm in October 2022. The effort involved considerable effort in planning site design options, site preparation, selection of appropriate native species and suppliers to meet multiple project objectives, site irrigation, and securing considerable volunteer expertise for installation, protection, and monitoring. The forest offers an additional avenue for Martha’s Community Farm to contribute fresh produce to families experiencing food insecurity while achieving the project’s conservation objectives. The project also provides unique educational opportunities for a diverse audience.

Martha’s Choice Marketplace and Community Farm is the largest food pantry in Montgomery County, serving almost 20,000 individuals and delivering 1.5 million pounds of food every year. Their mission is to build community through access to healthy food. https://marthaschoicemarketplace.com/farm/

Plastic pollution poses a significant threat to our water quality, our recreational enjoyment, and endangers local species and ecosystems. Sadly, outdoor enthusiasts throughout the Delaware River watershed, and especially along the Schuylkill, have come across a plastic litter when attempting to fish, boat, or hike.
Now there’s growing research showing that this visible plastic pollution may pose a more nefarious threat to our environment and public health: the threat of microplastics.
Our upcoming project involves testing waterways throughout the Delaware River Watershed, including the Schuylkill River and several of its tributaries, for microplastics. We’ll then use the results to educate the public and key stakeholders about the hazards posed by plastic and microplastic pollution in the basin, and offer common sense solutions to protect our local environment from these threats. We believe that by identifying microplastic pollution locally, we can build the investment of concerned citizens in helping to address this problem. This presentation would go through our results, methodology, recommendations, and what it means for the watershed.