Allegheny Mountain Chapter of Trout Unlimited

Where did it go?

Summer that is. Hard to believe that we are into fall and that bad 4 letter word is back on the news. I’m sorry that it has taken so long to get this newsletter out, and I could sure use some help. By the time you read this we will have completed out October membership meeting.

So let’s get caught up. Our banquet despite all the negative reports on the economy was a success. I would like to thank all who helped make this year’s banquet the success it was. Next year’s is all ready in the planning stages and is set for April 10th at the DuBois Country Club. We are in need of some additional help with next years since it doesn’t look like Samantha will be around to set it up. Samantha in case you didn’t know graduated from college and is working as a fishery tech in Idaho for the Dept. of Fish and Game. The chapter wishes her well and thanks her for her many years of service.

Our May membership meeting was standing room only. Steve Keppler from the PA Fish and Boat Commission was on hand to talk about Marcellus gas development. It was great to see so many people have and interest in this.

DuBois Area Middle School released their fish on May 29th. Kim Bonfardine was able to be there and help with the release. All their trout were released into the Sandy Lick Creek. The following week Kim, Orwin Srock, Ken Undercoffer, Bud Thomas, Eric Wilson, went to Camp Mountain Run and helped with the Middle Schools environmental day. We help the students collect bugs and bring them in for identification.

The first week in June Orwin Srock and Ken Undercoffer were at Parker Dam teaching fly-casting.

Eric Wilson was at Jefferson County Youth Field days showing the kids how to tie a fly. We wanted to do Clearfield County’s but we didn’t have anyone to do it.

June 13th we hosted our annual Big Brothers Big Sisters event at the Tannery Dam. Joe Buterbaugh, Ken Undercoffer, Orwin Srock, Bud Thomas, Kim Bonfardine and I and my little Brian, hosted 5 littles and I’m happy to report that as in the past everyone caught fish. Kim did a great job showing the kids the different bugs and was a bigger hit than the fishing.

June 19th Eric Wilson and George Kutskel along with DuBois Area Catholic School teachers Renee Gressler and Mike Micknis and DuBois Area School Rob McClelland attended the training for next year’s program. Any new schools or teachers must attend the training along with the chapter sponsor.

We could really use more help for these types of events as many request come in but we don’t have the manpower to do programs if they happen to fall back to back with each other. Also as you can see it falls to the same people all the time.

If you are interested we would love to have you on our call list to help. I see articles every day that we need to get our youth involved in the outdoors, here’s your chance to do something about it and have some fun at the same time. Most of these events do not even take up the whole day, so please try and help.

Trout in the Classroom

We added DuBois Area Catholic School for this year and made a change in the DuBois High School. This will bring a total of 6 schools that we sponsor. Part of what we do with these schools is to provide them with support and programs as they need or ask for.

Eric Wilson is our youth chairman and has been in contact with the schools to see if they need any help in setting up their equipment. Also to see what programs or special events the schools may be planning that we can help with.

Schools that we are involved in are: DuBois Area High School, DuBois Middle School, Brockway High School, Jeff Tech, DuBois Area Catholic Schools, and Elk County Catholic School with the Jim Zwald Chapter as a partner.

November 2nd and 3rd Eric Wilson, Sam Sleigh and Orwin Srock will travel to Bellefonte to pack food and eggs to be shipped to all 149 schools in the state that participate in TiC. If you would like to help out next year please let me know. As this program continues to grow, State Council will need more help to keep up with the demand. There may even be a chance to stay at the Stackhouse School on Spring Creek for the volunteers.

Come out to the November meeting to learn firsthand all about Trout in the Classroom from State Council’s TiC Coordinator Emily Gates. Emily was at our Spring Banquet and was a huge help in getting it set up. So mark your calendars for November 11th at the DuBois YMCA.

Sandy Lick Creek News

We had Bill Gongaware attend our May meeting to show yet another system to treat the discharge at the mall. Also Tim Carlson and Gino Fracacchio from GKN in DuBois were here to talk about how they would like to help clean up the creek and help with the habitat.

We had a meeting with DEP and the Corp of Engineers at the DuBois Mall on June 11th. The purpose was to see how we could get a release of some of the Growing Greener money that was awarded for this project. Most of the talk centered on how to build in the area with the minimum of disturbance of wetlands. We also talked as to how large of a pond was going to be needed. Lee Simpson is doing the wetland pond site work for us. We also needed to know if we were going to have the creek infiltrating into any pond that we would build. In late July we had two test pits dug to 5’ below outflow of the pipe, neither showed any infiltrating. GKN was also interested in seeing the quality of the iron coming from the discharge and asked if we could get a sample. It took some time but we finally got a small amount. They want to have their labs look at the quality to see if it could be used in some of their manufacturing. Once this system is built we will have approximately 30 tons of iron to get rid of each year, so finding a local use for this would be a win-win for everyone.

August 1 marked a historic day in the history of the Sandy Lick. We installed 3 double log vanes on the mall bank side of the creek. Even with all the water (it rained all week) we were able to get into the creek and place these devices. The bottom up there is very rocky from when the flood control was built so I’m not sure how much cutting will occur but it will help the creek some to be sure. We still need to install three on the KFC side and are planning to do this next summer as the fall just got too busy and we couldn’t get enough people to help out. We had over 20 people come out and help on the 1st of Aug.

I would like to thank Kelly Williams from the Clearfield County Conservation District for helping to bring a few new people to help out.

Congratulations!

Kim Bonfardine was this year’s Golden Reel Award winner. Kim has taken on many jobs in the chapter and this year was the banquet chairperson.

Back the Brookie plate

We have a supply of these and are available at any of the meetings. Save $3.50 by buying one from your chapter.

Beginners Fly Tying Class

We will once again host a beginner’s fly tying class at the DuBois YMCA. The cost is $30.00 for TU and Y members and $60.00 for non-members. We will be starting this class on January 6, 2010. As in the past it will have seven classes.

Students need only the basic tools, as all material will be provided.

PA Conservation and Fly Fishing Camp

As in the past we will sponsor a student to this camp held at the Allenberry Resort in Boiling Spring. The last couple of years no one has taken advantage of this opportunity. If you have a child or grandchild between 14 and 17 and you think they may be interested, please call me. The deadline is in early March.

Dates to remember

October 6th Board meeting DuBois Nursing Home

October 14th Membership Meeting (Sandy Lick Creek, Where are we and where are we going). This is a must see if you’re at all interested in the creek. DuBois YMCA

Nov 3rd Annual re organizational meeting Hoss’s Steakhouse

Nov 11th Emily Gates will give a complete run down of the Trout in the Class Room. Come and learn what TU is teaching our children. DuBois YMCA

December NO meeting deer season

Jan 5th Board Meeting Big Run

Jan 6th Beginners Fly Tying Class DuBois YMCA

Jan 13th Membership Meeting DuBois YMCA TBA

Feb 2nd Board Meeting DuBois Nursing Home

Feb 10th Membership Meeting Fly Tying Roundtable DuBois YMCA

Mar 2nd Board Meeting Big Run

Mar 10th Membership Meeting DuBois YMCA

April 6th Board Meeting DuBois Nursing Home

April 10th Banquet DuBois Country Club

May 4th Board Meeting Big Run

May 12th Membership Meeting DuBois YMCA

Note: All membership meeting will now be held at the DuBois YMCA and will start at 7:30

There will also be several events at the DuBois Mall that will require some members to be on hand to tie flies and sell raffle tickets. Please let me know if you can help.

Fly Tying Club

Eric Wilson will start a fly tying club that will meet every other week. This is a chance to join others and tie and tell stories. Come on out and join the fun.

Leaders

We have the tapered leaders that were mentioned in the State Council newsletter. Come out to a meeting and buy a few for you and your fishing buddies. These are quality leaders and they sell for just $3.50 each. You can also get a quantity discount if you buy 10 or more just ask me.

New for 2010

At this past spring’s banquet we announced the 1st annual photo contest. The winning photo will be used in next year’s shadowbox to be one of the raffle prizes. Any photo that shows a clear image of a trout or fishing scene will be eligible. There will also be 6 professional quality flies included in the box. This will look like the shadow box done for the Trout in the Class Room raffle that state council did last year. Please submit your best fish photo to: AMCTU PO Box 541 DuBois PA 15801 by Jan 31st 2010.

Hartshorn Run

This summer the West Branch Restoration Coalition asked us to be a partner in restoration of this tributary to the West Branch in the Clearfield area. All the work has been done and our part would be to monitor the project to make sure that it was working correctly. Since we didn’t need to find people to go out and do work we said yes.

Now a word from your chapter president

I’m sure that most of you know that I’m the current editor of this newsletter. I would also guess that you’re aware that I wear several TU hats. I’m asking that you make a new year’s resolution to become more active in your chapter. For the past few years most of the attendance and participation at chapter functions except for the banquet are just a handful of dedicated members. I meet people on the street all the time and they ask when is TU going to do: fill in the blank. It has been stated in the council newsletter as well as other places that YOU are TU. We have more projects and programs going on than we have people to fill them. I’m not asking that you give up your family or life, but if there is a project that you are interested in or can help with, join us. There are several topics in this very newsletter that could have happened or been done better had we had the help. I don’t what to sound like I’m upset or angry, that’s not the case. We as a chapter do so much as compared to many of the other chapters that I regularly hear from. It’s just hard to have to tell a group that we cannot do your program because we only have a hand full of regular volunteers. Even coming to meetings: we have our business meetings on the first Tuesday so when we announce a membership meeting it’s not going to be business, but it’s hard to bring in speakers and pay them if we are only going to have the board and one or two members show up. Going forward all membership meetings are going to be held at the DuBois YMCA. They are on the 2nd Wednesday of each month. Let’s see if we can’t start to have some more people show up.

Marcellus Shale: A Call to Action (an editorial)

If you have followed the state budget fiasco you know that our State Representatives did very little to protect our state forest or make sure that the citizens of PA were going to receive a fair value for the gas that lay beneath our forest.

DEP has taken away many of the “other” eyes that watched out for our environment. I feel that as members of Trout Unlimited we need to make our voices heard. We cannot or will not endorse any candidate or lobby, since we are a 501(c) 3 organization and as such we cannot. That doesn’t mean you don’t have a voice. Trout Unlimited is not against the responsible development of our natural gas resource, but we must still protect our environment. We cannot go back to what happened when everyone turned a blind eye to the coal industry and we were left with a huge legacy to clean up.

Already horror stories are surfacing of issues of streams being destroyed and damaged. What can you as a TU member do?

Contact your State Representatives and Senators and let them know you favor a severance tax. Here are some of the talking points. Cost of environmental clean ups are going to continue to mount and Growing Greener is fading away. Money that was in the Oil and Gas fund was used to balance the budget, so now DCNR will have little or no money to maintain OUR forest. Part of the tax should go to both the Fish and Game Departments as many of our citizens use the lakes and forest even though they neither fish nor hunt. We have a huge backlog in maintenance on many of our lakes that are owned by both commissions. The gas companies will not move away. The Marcellus formation has long been looked at by the industry and until now it was not feasible to tap into. Almost every state has a severance tax to help offset the increase cost on local governments. Another reason that taxing the industry will not cause them to leave is the fact that Pennsylvania is located where the bulk of the gas drilled elsewhere gets shipped to now. It’s like the real estate axiom Location, Location, Location.

Another issue that has not been dealt with in any way to protect the environment is what to do with all the wastewater. I have attended several meeting with the gas industry and they say of the 3 million gallons used to frack a well only 1 million comes back so it’s not that big of a problem. What they fail to think about is the accumulative effect. Today only a handful of wells are being drilled. If what DEP and the industry say are true, just wait. It is expected that over 8000 well will be drilled that would be 8 trillion gallons of polluted water produce per year. Where are we going to put it? If we do what we have done with shallow wells, we all need to go out and buy saltwater rods since no freshwater fish will be found in our waters. Since a lot of that water was diluted a municipal sewage treatment plants.

One of the other big half-truths is the subject of jobs. While it’s true that many jobs will be created, most are being filed by out of state workers who know how to work in the deep gas fields.

The above outlines what you can say to your State Representative in supporting our right to clean water and a healthy environment. You can also become active in spotting areas of concern.

State Council is working on providing training and equipment to help chapters be the eyes and ears in the field. Water withdrawals are another area of concern. When in the Susquehanna River watershed, withdraws are covered by the Susquehanna River Basin Commission. Water withdrawals are highly regulated. An example: DuBois gets its water from Anderson Creek, which is in the Susquehanna River drainage. They cannot exceed 2 million gallons per day. Unfortunately when you cross the divide into the Ohio drainage no such commission exists. Water withdrawals here are controlled by DEP. That means that rules can and do vary from drainage to drainage depending on which DEP office is in charge. The industry has been asked to stay away from headwater streams. Again most of these companies are subcontracting the work so that word doesn’t always get down to their level. You need to call if you feel that a company is withdrawing water from a small headwater stream. Jim’s Sports Center in Clearfield has cards to carry in your vest with phone #’s of the agencies in “charge” and can come out and investigate.

In any event even with any training or classes you may attend, never trespass on an active drill site. There are many hazards aside from the heavy equipment to make it too risky to do, beside its illegal.

As the title of this says a “Call to Action” we all need to do our part. At one of our meetings recently a person asked us what we were going to do about a water withdraw that he thought was wrong. We asked if he contacted DEP he said they should already know. If there ever was times to get involved its now don’t assume that someone else is going to do it. It’s like the back of our banquet tickets says: “The next time you say someone should do something, remember you are someone.”