Earlier this year, TTF and the Pennypack Ecological Restoration Trust (PERT) announced that our newly established partnership would receive $442,000 over three years through the William Penn Foundation‘s Delaware Watershed Conservation Program. This initiative will fund stream restoration and green infrastructure projects and inform municipal stormwater permits and public investments, using monitoring data gathered through aligned, science based efforts.
As part of this effort, the Academy of Natural Sciences and Stroud Water Research Center are leading the watershed analysis work, guiding such partners as TTF and PERT to train and mobilize citizen scientists to collect information to add to their database.
Read more about the grant here.
On Wednesday, June 4th, over 40 citizens gathered at Abington Friends School (AFS) to learn how to become Streamkeepers in the Tookany and Pennypack watersheds.
Among the attendees were members of PERT, the Sierra Club, Briar Bush Nature Center as well as dozens of streamside citizens. Educators from Abington Friends School, Arcadia and LaSalle universities, and Saint Basil’s Academy joined us, and learned how they could train and engage their students to become Streamkeepers on their own campuses. These prospective Streamkeepers were eager to learn more; many also possessed local knowledge of our streams gained through decades of living in the watershed.
After sharing information about the work of both organizations and the Streamkeeper program, we distributed an interest survey and explained the expectations for Streamkeepers, including performance of monthly monitoring and attendance at training sessions. We got a unanimous yes! from most of the attendees about becoming Streamkeepers. After the meeting, we headed out to the headwaters branch of Jenkintown Creek behind AFS and shared stories of creeks in our neighborhoods.
With over 21 miles of stream in the Tookany, we have a lot to cover! We need citizens like you to become Streamkeepers! For more information, contact Alex Cooper at cooper@ttfwatershed.org/215-744-1853.
