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Overview of the TCWA Organization
History: The Turtle Creek Watershed Association is a 501(c)(3) organization founded in 1968 and incorporated in 1970 as the first such group in the western part of Pennsylvania. At that time development was increasing, so erosion and flooding problems were growing. Mine drainage from nearly every part of the watershed had been polluting local streams for decades. Community education and water monitoring were critical parts of finding good solutions.
According to our By-Laws, the Turtle Creek Watershed Association is governed by a nine member Board of Directors along with Associate Directors, who often are involved in one phase of TCWA’s work and who vote if a quorum of directors is not present. Directors serve three year terms.
Membership: TCWA membership is open to those who live or work in the watershed, or those who have demonstrated a significant, positive interest in the health of the watershed.
Meetings are held on the last Tuesday of each month, normally at 7:00 p.m. With a pressing reason, a meeting date will be changed. In that case, members will be notified via e-mail and regular mail, the local newspapers will be notified via e-mail, and the new date will be posted on our website. Due to the holidays, there is no meeting in December.
Projects: Still true to our origins, TCWA works with our 33 communities, two counties, state and federal officials and agencies, local universities, organizations with similar missions, and other partners to address water quality and quantity issues. Abandoned mine drainage, streambank destabilization, stormwater management, erosion and sedimentation, and related issues are not just “environmental” problems. They impact people directly in ways that threaten their safety; damage their homes, businesses, and property; decrease market values; and make communities less attractive places in which to locate.
Indirect impacts include how high our local, county, state, and federal taxes, our utility bills, and our insurance rates are. Plus, these issues determine the quality of our drinking water sources. As we are learning, all substances in our surface waters are not be removed during water treatment processes.
Another, but more recent, aspect of water quality and quantity issues is regulatory focus. As problems have increased, EPA has begun to enforce provisions of the Clean Water Act more aggressively. The Alcosan consent decree (estimated to cost at least $3 billion) is one example, and the NPDES Phase II, MS4 Program (affecting 30 of our 33 municipalities) is another. DEP is charged with much of the enforcement actions. Recently their attention has been turned to other parts of the state that drain into the Chesapeake Bay. However, as the dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico grow, our Ohio River Basin will receive more focus.
Doing our best now to reduce the problems and reduce the costs to successfully address them will help us tremendously in the future. TCWA is able to help our communities to comply with federal and state regulations. We are also promoting use of more innovative measures to solve our problems. These have worked well in other parts of the state and the country, are available for grant funding, and can be adapted for use here.
We encourage anyone interested in finding good solutions to join one of our project partnerships and be part of some innovative work to better position our region for the future.