The Stonycreek River needs another strong day of voting to win Pennsylvania's River of the Year competition. (Staff photo by Roger Vogel) |
One final surge should be enough to push the Stonycreek River to a first-place finish in Pennsylvania’s River of the Year competition.
The river held a 16-percentage point lead in the annual contest as of 5:30 p.m. Thursday. It led its closest competitor — the Middle Monongahela — by a mark of 43 to 27 percent. The Kiskiminetas River and the Upper Juniata River are also in the running.
“The whole community can be proud of the recognition if we get it,” Stonycreek-Quemahoning Initiative facilitator Mike Quinn said. “It’s a tremendous asset.”
Residents can put the Stonycreek over the top by voting at pawatersheds.org/vote. The polls close at midnight tomorrow.
According to Quinn, a win would be even sweeter after a narrow defeat in last year’s contest.
“We lost to the Delaware River, which is the second-largest east of the Mississippi,” he said. “They obviously had such a large population base to pull from.”
Quinn said the timing of a win this year would be perfect, as the Stonycreek is scheduled for whitewater releases every other weekend this summer starting in April. It is poised to be the river’s biggest year to date for rafting recreation.
River of the Year also comes with a $10,000 award. Quinn said most of this money would be used to promote recreation, education and stewardship of the river. The Stonycreek-Conemaugh River Improvement Project, also known as SCRIP, would receive a portion of funding as well.
“It’s a great testimony for all the people who helped clean it all these years,” Quinn said. “We’re not letting down our effort until midnight Saturday.”
The Stonycreek is remarkable for its recovery. Once heavily polluted by acid mine drainage, it was cleaned during the past few decades by SCRIP and other conservation groups. Today the river is a popular source of recreation and home to 22 species of fish.
SCRIP Chairman Len Lichvar said only growing awareness and activism will keep the river clean.
“I would hope it would continue to enlighten and inform about how that occurred,” Lichvar said. “The work on that end is far from done.”
Mike Burk— president of the Benscreek Canoe Club, a group that is primed to use the Stonycreek frequently this summer — said River of the Year would be a great way to honor those who worked hard to restore this once-devastated river.
“We’re looking at this for the recognition,” Burk said. “We really think a lot of things have happened with the Stony worth mentioning.”
River of the Year has been an annual competition of the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources for more than 20 years.
