SCHUYLKILL HAVEN — With about 150 students in the biology club at Schuylkill Haven Area High School, there were more than enough hands to make a difference in the Schuylkill River Valley.
On Wednesday, the club received a Protecting Our Waters Award for their work protecting the river and its drinking water. Three schools in the Schuylkill Watershed received the award this year. The other two were The Miquon School, Conshohocken, and The Montgomery School, Chester Springs.
The Schuylkill Haven Area students planted trees on school property for Arbor Day, participated in Schuylkill Scrub and Schuylkill Keep It Pretty cleanups and learned about the leading source of local water pollution: abandoned mines. Kaye Schwenk, club adviser and biology teacher at the high school, said she incorporated her visit to the Silver Creek abandoned mine drainage treatment system into her lessons.
“We very much focus on the community aspect and the students enjoy that,” Schwenk said. “I think they also think of it as part of their civic responsibility.”
The Schuylkill River and its tributaries provide drinking water for more than 2 million people living in more than 200 communities in 11 counties, according to the Schuylkill Action Network. It is also the largest influence on the tidal Delaware River and Bay, also known as the Delaware River estuary.
SAN is a collaboration of agencies, companies, individuals and nonprofit organizations founded to help clean up the Schuylkill River and the many waterways flowing into it.
“The goal of the Protecting Our Waters Awards is to help them make the connection that the water we see in our rivers and streams is the water that they drink and get them to realize the importance of protecting that water,” Virginia Vassalotti, senior Schuylkill Action Network specialist for the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary, said.
She said the types of projects that the students at Schuylkill Haven Area completed throughout the year can make a positive impact on the local drinking water.
“All those different activities combined was really impressive,” she said.
Bill Reichert, president of Schuylkill Headwaters Association, told the students how impressed he was with biology club and their efforts to improve water quality.
“I am so impressed with the number of people in the biology club,” Reichert, a Schuylkill Haven Area alumnus, said. “There are more people in the biology club than were in my graduating class. I am really thrilled to learn about what you did and hope to work together with you again.”
Corbin Ney, a sophomore, gave a presentation to his fellow club members about the weeklong Schuylkill Acts & Impacts program. Ney said he and about a dozen other students participated in the program last June. They traveled along the 12-mile Schuylkill River from its headwaters in Schuylkill County to its confluence with the Delaware River in Philadelphia and learned about the array of things impacting the water quality.
“It’s easy to see the effects here locally,” he said. “Every action that we take impacts our quality of water. Every act we take is important, so make sure it is a good one.”
Contact the writer: ; 570-628-6023