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Hi Friend,
The beginning of April brought intense rainfall and heavy flooding to our region. All eyes were on our rivers and streams as they flooded and impacted those that live along the waterways or commute along them. In the last newsletter, I shared how the power of collective action can create positive change in our communities. I’m happy to share that in partnership with community members and local environmental groups, we have three wins to share with you in this newsletter! April is a huge month for all things environmental with Earth Day on April 22nd. What are you doing for Earth Day this year?
Yours for clean water,
Jess Friss Director of Community Programs |
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Upcoming Events |
Blue Vinyl Documentary Screenings Join us for FREE screenings of “Blue Vinyl,” an Emmy-award winning documentary uncovering the environmental, health and environmental justice impacts of vinyl chloride. After the screening there will be a moderated panel discussion with residents from East Palestine, Ohio and Beaver County, Pennsylvania who were directly affected by vinyl chloride. April 11th, 5:30 - 8:30 PM at Iron Horse Theatre in Ambridge, PA | RSVP April 15th, 7 - 10 PM at Lindsay Theater in Sewickely, PA | RSVP April 27th, 2 – 4pm at East Palestine Memorial Public Library | RSVP May 5th, 2 -5 PM at Carnegie Museum of Art | RSVP Soon
4/18 — Neighbor Night at The Refillery: Earth Month Edition | 5:30 - 7:30 pm Calling all Downtown residents and neighbors! Join us for a night of community and networking in honor of Earth Month! Enjoy light fair by PAIR Charcuterie as well as complimentary wine! As an extra perk, you'll be entered to win a $50 Refillery gift card just for coming! 3RWK will be there highlighting our work with the lifecycle of plastics and their impacts on our rivers. RSVP Here.
4/19 — SciTech Days: Environmental Science | 9 am - 2 pm SciTech Days at the Carnegie Science Center connect middle- and high-school students with real-world scientists, engineers, tradespeople, and other STEM professionals from local companies, organizations, and universities. 3RWK will be tabling and providing information and resources about our waterways! Learn more.
4/20 — Earth Day in Baden, PA | 11 am - 2 pm We will be joining Sisters of St. Joseph in Baden, PA along with other local environmental groups to celebrate Earth Day at this free outdoor event. Activites include: live bluegrass music from The Wolf Tones Band, crafts and sidewalk chalk art for kids, a clothing exchange, CommuniCycle bike distribution, and educational exhibits from local environmental experts and advocates about what we can all do to protect our water, soil and air. More Information.
4/24 — Be a Water Advocate for Your Community | 5 - 6 pm Join Three Rivers Waterkeeper and Watersheds of South Pittsburgh to learn why and how to advocate for clean water! We will discuss sources of water pollution and how to spot and report water pollution and share knowledge about our clean water laws and advocacy actions. This month we’ll be at the Carnegie Library in Mt. Washington! More information. |
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Join us at our second annual Summer Kickoff |
Come Celebrate Pennsylvania's River of the Year! The Allegheny River The Ohi:yo’ The Good River
When? June 15, 2024 4:00 pm - 8:00 pm Where? Allegheny RiverTrail Park 3ROC Outpost
This event is family-friendly and free to the public! We'll have light refreshments, games, live music, free kayaking (first come, first serve), fun and educational watershed activities, door prize and raffle items, and more! Additional food and drink will be available for purchase. More information to come!
Bring your lawn chairs, yard games, family and friends, and join us for a fun time and celebrate Pennsylvania's River of the Year! |
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In March, our team spent 32 hours on the water dedicated to water sampling, patrolling, and following up on our ongoing targeted monitoring project. |
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Our Waterkeeper, Evan, went down to Memphis, Tennessee to help out at Living Lands & Waters’ Alternative Spring Break (Week 2). He spent a few days with volunteers cleaning up McKellar Lake. Together everyone cleaned up 46,032 pounds of garbage! |
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Three Rivers Waterkeeper continues to monitor and sample the waterways impacted by the East Palestine Train Derailment. Our crew was out there in March collecting more water and soil samples with a community member. You can read our latest report about our sampling efforts here.
Directly Support Water Sampling in East Palestine, OH
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In addition to our Nurdle Patrol around the Shell plant with Mountain Watershed Association this month, 3RWK expanded our patrolling efforts on other plastic producers and related facilities as we take a serious look at other commercial users, shippers and producers of plastics in our region. We have always been able to find nurdles almost everywhere we have looked in past years which really shows that we have a plastics industry problem in our region. |
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We gathered with community members at our office for our first Craft for Climate event! Our environmental educator and AmeriCorp member, Sierra, hand made screen prints for shirts and posters! We also wrote to our local legislators to take action on climate! Don’t worry, we hope to print more in the future, so keep an eye out for additional events and sign up for our climate action listserv here. |
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The Southwestern Pennsylvania Water Network worked together to plan the 2024 Water Equity Summit on March 9th. We appreciate the opportunity to to gather together the passionate individuals who share a common dedication to safeguard and steward the waters of the Upper Ohio River Basin. Our Environmental Scientist, Koa, spoke during the Chemicals of Concern Panel to share information about our Swim Guide Sampling. You can support our 2024 Swim Guide Monitoring series here! |
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In April, we held our second Beaver Run Reservoir Community Meeting with our partners, Protect PT and Mountain Watershed Association. We shared knowledge and listened to community concerns over the low water levels of the Beaver Run Reservoir and the sale of the public drinking water source to the petrochemical industry. Our staff member, Hannah, and representatives from partner organizations have also been attending meetings with the Municipal Authority of Westmorland County (MAWC) to address the concerns brought up by community members as well as bringing forward the four actions we believe MAWC should take. You read more and can sign the petition here. |
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On World Water Day, we gathered with some local water-based organizations on the Rivers of Steel Explorer riverboat! It was a great chance to catch up with others who are also doing important work to protect our watershed. We learned about macroinvertebrates in our rivers from Rivers of Steel’s education team, screen printed posters and made buttons. Thank you to everyone who joined us! |
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We updated community members who have been involved with and potentially impacted by a new proposed injection well in Plum, PA we joined Protect PT and FracTracker to hold a community meeting to discus actionable steps people can take along with the environmental and public health risks associated with injection wells. See Community Wins for an update on the Sedat 4a injection well below. You can read the news coverage of this meeting here. |
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Hannah and Sierra joined the Environmental Justice Table (EJT) in Clairton for 'Spring into New Resources'. We learn so much from community members and are so grateful to those who worked behind the scenes to make this awesome event happen! Established in 2023, the Environmental Justice Table (EJT) is a community-driven group focused on addressing environmental injustice in marginalized communities across Allegheny County. Three Rivers Waterkeeper is a steering committee member of the EJT. Read more about the ongoing campaigns for the EJT here and keep an eye out for another resource fair in Wilkinsburg this August! |
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In partnership with other members of the Pennsylvania Table of the Climate Action Campaign, we collected over 6,000 signatures to call on the Environmental Protection Agency and current administration to act boldly to implement the strongest possible pollution standards. Thank you to our table members on the Eastern side of Pennsylvania for delivering the petition signatures directly to the EPA Region 3 office. Sign up to get involved in climate action here. |
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This month the Environmental Protection Agency finalized new light-duty vehicle tailpipe pollution standards that will cut pollution from the transportation sector. These new clean cars standards are vital to our progress in cutting pollution, cleaning up our air, slowing the future pace of climate change, and mitigating the negative impacts of climate change on water quality. Read our full statement here. |
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Community Wins |
Read about some progress made towards cleaner water! |
| MAWC Doubles Industry Cost for Water
Three Rivers Waterkeeper, along with Protect PT and Mountain Watershed Association, held public community meetings concerning Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County (MAWC) waiting months to pause withdraws of water in the reservoir for fracking during a drought watch. While hearing from the community, we approached MAWC with four policy recommendations, one of which was increasing the cost of water that is used for fracking since that water cannot be reused for drinking water. MAWC responded by nearly doubling the amount of money they charge fracking corporation to withdraw public water from the reservoir.
Sign the petition here to call on MAWC to take the rest of our recommended actions. |
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| Injection Well Ordinance Passes
Last year we worked with community members and environmental groups including Mountain Watershed Association, Protect PT, and FracTracker to organize against a proposed injection well permit in Nicholson Township. The community was vocally against the injection well and the proposal was withdrawn. Organizers at Mountain Watershed Association have been working since to get an ordinance in the county that passed unanimously that would put heavy restrictions on further development of injection wells.
Read more about this community win here |
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| Motion to Dismiss Appeal Defeated
Protect PT and Three Rivers Waterkeeper are thrilled to announce that they defeated Penneco’s attempt to dismiss their appeal of the EPA’s issuance of the Sedat 4a Underground Fracking Waste Injection Well in front of the federal Environmental Appeals Board (“EAB”). Penneco sought to have the appeal dismissed on timeliness grounds, but instead the EAB found that the EPA did not issue proper notice of its final permit action according to a February 28th ruling. This result also means that additional individuals or organizations may also file an appeal at this time. |
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Advocacy Strength in Numbers |
Read about some of the coalition letters and comments we signed onto! |
Fellow Waterkeeper member, the San Antonio Bay Waterkeeper took the lead on writing a letter to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality requesting that they should require Formosa Plastics update its monitoring program to protect Lavaca Bay. We stand with the San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeeper in their efforts to protect their waterway. You can read the letter here.
Following the Biden-Harris Administration’s announcement of on temporarily pausing any pending approvals of Liquefied Natural Gas Exports, US Senators Casey and Fetterman published a statement opposing this decision. We worked with the Pennsylvania Table of the Climate Action Campaign to draft a letter to Senators Casey and Fetterman expressing our disappointment in their statement. We believe a move toward clean energy holds vast potential for Pennsylvania’s economy, will create jobs, and does not endanger our climate, health or safety.
In February of 2024, the EPA issued a proposed rule titled “Definition of Hazardous Waste Applicable to Releases from Solid Waste Management Units” that would amend the regulatory definition of hazardous waste as it applies to corrective action. This is important as it includes emerging contaminants, such as PFAS, and it would provide the EPA the authority to clean them up. We signed onto Waterkeeper Alliance’s comment on this proposed rule urging the EPA to finalize this rule.
Led by the Environmental Integrity Project, a letter was sent in response to US Senators who wrote to the EPA in December 2023 expressing their concerns for proposed rules that relate to the steel industry and their economic cost. The letter explained that the EPA proposed rules on Coke Oven Plants is necessary due to the dangerous benzene concentrations measured at these plants. Read the full letter here.
Another fellow Waterkeeper Alliance member, West Virginia Rivers, led an action to submit comments to the West Virginia DEP urging that they reject a permit application for Chemours that would allow their Washington Works facility to discharge additional PFAS chemicals into the Ohio River. We joined in on this action and object to PFAS discharge into any waterway let alone one that we care deeply about! You can read more here.
This month, the United States House of Representatives received two letters that called on them to strongly oppose H.R. 1023. This legislation would repeal the Methane Emissions Reductions Program and would cause harm to the climate, public health, increase waste, and more which you can read more about in the first letter here. The second letter focused on the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund and how H.R. 1023 would undermine this program. You can read that letter here.
While we celebrate the EPA”s recently updated National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for fine particulate matter pollution (PM 2.5, also known as soot), the rule is currently under review. We signed onto the Climate Action Campaign’s letter urging the Pennsylvania Federal Delegation to vote against the Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution that would overturn the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s recently updated soot pollution standard.
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| Take Action! | Learn about some of the ways you can get involved! |  | | |  | 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! | |  | We find plastic pollution all over our region during our patrols. These tiny plastic pellets called “nurdles” are being dumped into our environment all over Pennsylvania by the millions. Add your name to tell your U.S. senators to keep this plastic pollution out of our rivers, lakes and oceans! | |
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#RunForAReason with us! |
Three Rivers Waterkeeper is an official charity with the Pittsburgh Marathon. If you’re running you can choose to Run for a Reason and raise money for Three Rivers Waterkeeper. The benefits: Give your run the chance to empower change Get your registration fee refunded by reaching a fundraising goal Win prizes from Three Rivers Waterkeeper for reaching fundraising goals
Learn more on the Pittsburgh Marathon’s website here. |
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You can also directly support those who have picked Three Rivers Waterkeeper as their charity organization. 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.
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Swimmable. Fishable. Drinkable. |
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3rwk.org | Support Clean Water
800 Vinial Street, Suite B314 Pittsburgh, PA 15212 © Three Rivers Waterkeeper. All rights reserved. |
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