MILLIONS TO BE SPENT ON LOCAL WATERSHED
Projects will address stream improvements
by James Moate, Endeavor News

Mark Hartle

Representatives from the Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission (F&BC) held a public meeting on Wednesday to establish a stakeholders group to assist with projects and fund disbursement for their share of the Norfolk Southern train derailment settlement.

During the one-hour session, a F&BC biologist listed the number of fish and other species that are believed to have been killed in the Portage Creek and the Driftwood Branch of the Sinnemahoning River when 40,000 gallons of lye poured from a ruptured tanker and into a small, headwater stream that feeds the larger streams.

Mark Hartle, who performed the twoyear study, said that an estimated 368,000 fish and 36 hellbenders were killed by the pollutant in the days immediately following the July 2006 spill. In addition, between 68 and 98 percent of the streams' invertebrates were wiped out immediately. In the 20 months, he said, an additional 374,000 fish and 395 hellbenders died from the contamination.

F&BC estimates it will take about three years for many of the fish species to repopulate, six years for the trout to recover and as long as 25 years for the hellbender population to rebound.

During that time, F&BC studies conclude that over 4,000 fishing trips will be lost causing an undetermined amount of financial damage to the area.

Norfolk Southern reclaimed the spill site and later agreed to pay over $7.5 million in damages. Half of that money went directly to the Headwaters Resource Conservation and Development Council to support projects in the local watershed. Over $3.5 million went directly to the Fish & Boat Commission.

F&BC officials explained how they got funds and how the funds will be used. They also distinguished the differences between the F&BC the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) in how they intend to spend their shares of the settlement.

According to Scott Carney, Chief of F&BC's habitat management division, the next several months will be used to "identify, coordinate and implement projects."

In April, a formal process to determine the projects will be established.

"Identify the projects and (the PFBC) will give you the tools to put the project together," Carney told the large crowd.

Jason Detar, another member of the PFBC's habitat management division, said there is a "broad range of eligible projects and applicants."

Detar said that eligible projects must focus on stream or stream bank improvement, water quality improvement, habitat improvement or any strategy that helps support aquatic life. Any state or federal agency involved with protection, conservation, research, etc. will be among eligible applicants for project funding as well as certified non-profit organizations that focus on these or related issues.

Private land owners and for-profit business are not eligible.

The initial projects will focus on the areas that were hit the hardest by the spill.

According to Jeanne Wambaugh, district forester at the Elk State Forest, DEP's settlement money will be placed in an interest-bearing account initially and then spent accordingly.

"If they decide to spend the money all in one year, then so-be-it," said Wambaugh. "What's important though is that it will all be spent locally on affected

Watershed cluded the conservation areas rather than (elsewhere)."

Organizations represented at the meeting included the conservation districts in Cameron, Potter and McKean counties as well as the Cameron County Board of Commissioners, the Lumber Heritage Region, Cameron County Chamber of Commerce, Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, Elk Forest District, Elk County Planning Committee, Geotech, Elk County Watershed Association and the Bucktail Watershed Association. McKean County District Attorney John Pavlock and several watershed specialists were also in the audience.

For more information and a full report of the topic, visit the PFBC's website at fish. state.pa.us.