Friend,

We have so much exciting news to share with you this month! The Allegheny River won 2024 PA’s River of the Year, and we are ready for a year of celebrating with you all on the water! We joined Climate Action Campaign, and we are excited to share new opportunities to get involved in taking climate action! As we move into the end stretch of winter, it’s a great time to explore our rivers and streams from the numerous trails that run alongside them! Check out our upcoming events for other ways to wade through winter.

Yours for clean water,

Jess Friss

Director of Community Programs

Support Clean Water For All

Upcoming Events

February 24th - Super Science Saturday: Neighborhood Nature

Three Rivers Waterkeeper will be joining the Carnegie Museum of Natural History at their Super Science Saturday series! The theme is Neighborhood Nature: From a sidewalk crack teeming with plant life to majestic birds of prey soaring over our three rivers, nature is everywhere in the Burgh! Examine how tech can help you look for wildlife high and low. Investigate the biodiversity of Pittsburgh and learn how organisms are thriving in and around the Steel City.

12 PM - 4 PM at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History | Tickets Here

February 25th - Cabin Fever 2024

Three Rivers Waterkeeper will be tabling at Penn’s Woods West Chapter of Trout Unlimited's Cabin Fever! About Cabin Fever: We are excited to offer Southwest PA an amazing Fly Fishing Experience! We have built out an amazing agenda and added top vendors to give you access to materials, equipment and gear. This year we will have a focus on Fly Tying with tying demonstrations, top tyers showing you their tricks and you can visit tyers row to up your own game. Come meet top conservation partners who can teach you how you can make a difference to our rivers by making small changes right in your own backyard.

9 PM - 4 PM at the Hilton DoubleTree in Cranberry | Tickets Here

February 25th - Sustainability Salon on Movement-Building

A Sustainability Salon is an educational forum; it's a mini-conference; it's a venue for discussion and debate about important environmental issues. We will be joining other local leaders and activists to talk about successful social movements and effective campaigns with a focus on water! To get the Zoom link please email maren.cook@gmail.com with “salon” in the subject line.

4 PM on Zoom | More Information Here

March 9th - Water Equity Summit

Join us for the Water Equity Summit at Hosanna House, Inc. in Pittsburgh, PA, USA! This in-person event will bring together experts, activists, and community members to discuss and address water equity issues. Together, we will explore innovative solutions, share inspiring stories, and collaborate on creating a more equitable water future for all. Don't miss this opportunity to connect with like-minded individuals and make a positive impact.

9 AM - 1 PM at the Hosanna House, Pittsburgh PA | Register Here

Interested in learning how to be a Water Advocate? This spring we will be at two Carnegie Libraries of Pittsburgh locations, Mount Washington (April 24th) and Carrick (May 20th), with Watersheds of South Pittsburgh to talk about water issues in your community and how to advocate for clean water! Mark your calendars and keep an eye out for more information.

Thank you! to everyone who voted in support of the Allegheny River for PA’s 2024 River of the Year! The Allegheny River won with over 8,000 votes! We are looking forward to celebrating the Allegheny River for the rest of the year through educational and fun events on the water! Keep an eye out for more information about these events!

Over a year ago on February 3, 2023, a Norfolk Southern freight train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, about a quarter-mile west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania state line. The negative human and environmental impacts of this catastrophe are still being documented. On November 20th, 2023 Three Rivers Waterkeeper conducted water and sediment sampling. Our study shows high contamination levels of suspected pollutants from the derailment in the sediment in Sulphur Run.

Read Our Full Report Here

We started off 2024 on the Ohio River in Beaver County conducting a nurdle patrol around the Shell Cracker plant with Mountain Watershed Association. We also conducted water sampling as we noticed surface foam and a non-iridescent sheen with strong odor near one of their outfalls. We made a report to the PA Department of Environmental Protection to open an investigation.

We were visited by our friends at Living Lands & Waters, an organization that is dedicated to river cleanups with its amazing fleet of barges, workboats, and heavy machinery like an excavator and crane. One of their projects is the Great Mississippi River Cleanup, where they’ve removed 610,024 pounds of debris from the Mississippi River! Our Waterkeeper showed them around our waterways— after all the Ohio River is a tributary of the Mississippi River.

The cold hasn’t stopped us from getting on on the water— our staff spent a collective 36 hours out on the water this month! Some of our work out on the rivers included water sampling with our YSI and freeing two stuck docks from a buoy on the river! On the wildlife side of things, they noted at least 6 great blue herons in one day spent on the water!

Last year we worked with Women for a Healthy Environment’s Environmental Health Fellow, Morgan, to help with their study about PFAS contamination in wastewater discharge. You can read their full report here. We joined their PFAS Lunch & Learn this month to share our own ongoing PFAS study in Southwestern PA. You can watch the webinar here!

Read Our 2024 Interim PFAS Report Here

Our Executive Director, Heather, presented at the University of Pittsburgh’s Green Speakeasy along side Chavaysha Chaney from Women for a Healthy Environment and Jason Beery from UrbanKind Institute. The theme was Community Partnerships and Tackling Regional Water Challenges and was co-hosted by the University of Pittsburgh’s Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation and the Pittsburgh Water Collaboratory.

Our Executive Director, Heather, and Director of Community Programs, Jess, traveled down to Washington D.C. to join Climate Action Campaign and 70 other partner groups from across the nation. We engaged with our Members of Congress to talk about the climate crisis and advocate for stronger pollution standards. Three Rivers Waterkeeper met with Rep. Summer Lee, Rep. Susan Wild, Rep. Chris Deluzio, Rep. Matt Cartwright, Senator Bob Casey and Senator John Fetterman.

📢 Join us in the fight to defend our climate! 📢

Advocacy Strength in Numbers

We joined American Rivers in sending a message to Congress to request support in a strong River Budget and key priorities ahead of the President’s Budget and Fiscal Year 2025 appropriations process. You can read the letter and budget recommendations here.
Pennsylvania House Bill 652 was introduced into legislation last year and aims to require industry that is planning to build or expand within Environmental Justice communities to prepare an environmental impact report and empower the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to deny a permit if the cumulative environmental impacts of the industry are too harmful. We signed onto a letter written by Clean Water Action to show support for HB 652 and encourage the Pennsylvania General Assembly to pass this legislation that would help with meaningful action towards addressing environmental injustice. You can take action with Clean Water Action here.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) drafted an updated policy, titled “Achieving Health and Environmental Protection Through EPA’s Meaningful Involvement Policy,” that outlines how the EPA will involve members of the public in regulatory decisions. We signed onto Waterkeeper Alliance’s comment that addresses some of the limitations of the policy including use of permissive language and lack of clear, objective criteria to assist the EPA in determining the appropriate level of public participation. You can read Waterkeeper Alliance’s comment here. We also joined regional organizations including UpstreamPgh, Lincoln Lemington Community Consensus Group, and Pittsburgh Community Reinvestment Group in signing onto a comment that you can read here.
Three Rivers Waterkeeper joined 111 other organizations in a letter written by Waterkeeper Alliance to the Environmental Protection Agency with a request for the EPA to update their list of toxic water pollutants. This list, which can be found under section 307 of the Clean Water Act, has not been updated since 1976. You can learn more and read the letter here.
Three River Waterkeeper, along with local organizations, are calling Environmental Protection Agency to address equity their Lead and Copper Rule Improvements. This includes requesting that the EPA requires the water systems to cover the full cost of the lead pipe replacement in order to ensure the removal of lead pipes is not contingent on the ability to pay. You can read the full comment here.

TAKE ACTION!

Sign the Petition!

East Palestine Village Council is about to make a decision that could negatively impact the entire Ohio River Valley and we need YOUR help to stop it from happening! They are currently considering accepting "treated" wastewater from Norfolk Southern's "temporary" wastewater treatment facility that was set up just months after the train derailment that exposed community members to vinyl chloride, benzene, butyl acrylate, ethylhexyl acrylate, isobutylene, ethylene glycol monobutyl ether and more. If they accept the wastewater for treatment, the water will be discharged into Leslie Run, which flows into Little Beaver Creek and, ultimately, into the Ohio River. The Ohio River Basin is a drinking source for five million people and a recreational source for 30 million people. We can't let the possibility of additional pollutants entering our waterways happen. Please sign, share and help us protect the Ohio River Valley!

Sign the Petition!

Three Rivers Waterkeeper was also featured in numerous publications about being the nominating organization of the winning river for PA’s River of the Year. Some sources include Pittsburgh Magazine, KDKA, Pittsburgh Union Progress, and NPR’s local radio station in Central PA - WPSU.

Volunteer Opportunity

Sign Up for SaltWatch!

Salt Watch is a community initiative by the Izaak Walton League of America where community members can help monitor local waterways. During colder weather road salt is spread on roads and sidewalks to help melt the snow and ice, but this can be detrimental to our water. High levels of salt in freshwater is harmful to aquatic life and can impact our drinking water.

When you sign up, Three Rivers Waterkeeper will send you a free Salt Watch kit from the Izaak Walton League of America which includes test strips to test our waterways and instructions for how to share your findings!

Running for Clean Water!

The FedEx Pittsburgh Marathon Relay is happening on May 5th, and we have a team running! Support their run and our mission to protect our waterways by donating to the team here. All donations will be donated directly to Three Rivers Waterkeeper!

Donate Here

Swimmable. Fishable. Drinkable.

3rwk.org | Support Clean Water

800 Vinial Street, Suite B314 Pittsburgh, PA 15212

Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe