June 2001 Governor’s Award

for

Watershed Stewardship

Presented to the Center for Watershed Stewardship,

Pennsylvania State University & Berks County Conservancy

Tom Ridge, Governor

David E. Hess, Secretary

The Center for Watershed Stewardship at Penn State was among the initial 25 recipients of a “Governor’s Award in Watershed Stewardship” announced June 13, 2001 by Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge. The center was jointly recognized with the Berks County Conservancy in the Watershed Assessment and Planning category for its collaborative Maiden Creek Keystone Project completed in 2000 by a team of five graduate students, two CWS faculty, and three Heinz Faculty Fellows. The planning project involved an assessment, non-point source pollutant loading analysis, and the development of more than 50 management recommendations and strategies to address primary environmental issues and promote community-based efforts to protect the watershed of Reading’s water supply reservoir.

Acting on plan recommendations, local sponsors established the Maiden Creek Watershed Association and a county-wide Watershed Council to function as a technical support entity for several watershed initiatives. Also, two townships established a cooperative groundwater protection project covering most of the upper watershed on Blue Mountain and several other municipalities agreed to review municipal plans and ordinances with a goal of establishing consistent water and land resource protection across the watershed.

Joseph Hoffman, Berks County Conservancy director of natural resources and conservation, estimates the “in-kind” value of the Keystone Plan for Maiden Creek based on student and faculty time donated by CWS, was $87,000 to match implementation funding from other sources. Hoffman noted, “Without the thousands of hours Penn State Center for Watershed Stewardship students spent researching Maiden Creek, we wouldn’t have been able to start repairing the stream as quickly. (The plan) made us eligible for Growing Greener grants, saving us three to five years of work.”

Participants at the Governor’s Awards, June 26, 2001 in Harrisburg (l to r): David E. Hess, Secretary, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection; David C. Hogeman, Director, Growing Greener Grants Center; Andrew Longenecker, Berks County Conservancy; Lysle Sherwin, Director, Center for Watershed Stewardship; and Robert J. Barkanic, Deputy Secretary, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.