Members List:

Chairman:
John Kolojejchick
Treasurer:
David Irwin
Secretary:
Claudette Bedard

Links Section

	EASI
	DRAKE WELL MUSEUM
	OIL CREEK STATE PARK
	OIL 150
	VENANGO CONSERVATION DISTRICT

We are a group of dedicated retired and senior volunteers from a wide range of backgrounds all interested in the common goal of protecting and preserving our watershed.

Mission:
Our mission is to promote active and visible environmental stewardship.

We meet the fourth Thursday of each month (except November and December) at the FICDA building at 191 Howard Street, Franklin PA 16323. Meetings are open to the public and begin at 10 AM.

We encourage our senior population to use their expertise for environmental protection and stewardship activities

Venango County is located in rural northwestern Pennsylvania. We have many beautiful and wild streams with excellent sport fishing and many acres of forest that are great for hunting. But Venango County is not just about hunting and fishing. The first commercial oil well was drilled by Colonal Edwin Drake in 1859 in Venango County near the city of Titusville. In the years that followed thousands of oil and gas wells were drilled here. The county also has many abandoned shallow coal mines. Today both coal and oil have mostly passed on to other areas with only a few producing wells and fewer strip mines still operating. Natural Gas is still being produced in the area and new wells are common. The environmental impact of the early oil, gas and coal days however remain as leaking wells and acid mine drainage. Our goal is to monitor, protect, preserve and remediate the streams in our watersheds.

To download a copy of our Brochure click on the following download link Brochure as PDF file

Although Venango County has many high quality fishing streams all is not perfect in our little world. Some of our streams are impacted by acid mine drainage, leaking oil and gas wells and the residue from departed industries. Therefore we monitor streams from several watersheds.

We conduct monthly water monitoring using state wide protocols established by DEP through the Citizens' Volunteer Monitoring Program and the Pennsylvania Senior Environmental Corps. Our data is entered into a database and can be accessed by all interested parties.

Our monthly stream studies allow us to observe changes in water quality and to inform DEP, the PA Fish and Boat Commission and the Venango Conservation District when unusual events occur. Our semi-annual stream studies provide an index of the overall stream health. Watershed groups interested in making improvements to area streams can access the many years of baseline data we have collected. Local planning agencies can use the data to determine the environmental impact of planned development.

To learn more about our monitoring program click on the Stream Monitoring links.

over 710 wells located so far

In our area oil and gas exploration has been going on since 1859. It has long been known that the well bore created by oil, gas and water wells can act as a conduit and allow substances from normally separate layers to combine and in some cases contaminate other layers.

The Orphaned Wells Project began as a pilot program to engage senior volunteers to locate abandoned oil and gas wells on public land in Venango County. The project started in May 2003 with a grant from Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to Environmental Allience for Senoir Involvement(EASI) to train volunteers to work in Oil Creek State Park. In 2005-06 the program was expanded under a grant to the Venango Conservation District to train additional well hunters and to expand the search area to other public land (game land and state forest) in Venango County.

Members of the Venango PaSEC locate and mark suspected well locations and submit their data to DEP for evaluation.

For additional information click the Orphaned Wells links.