Venango PA SEC

over 575 wells located so far


	Stream Monitoring
	Stream Photos - Under Construction
	Orphan Wells
	Well Types
	Well Photos 2
	Spring Training
	Partners

News
Spring Training
Training sessions for stream monitors and well hunters will begin in the spring.

Click Here for Full Calendar

Members List:

Chairman:
John Kolojejchick
Treasurer:
David Irwin

Links Section

	EASI
	HEAR ABOUT US
	DEP ORPHAN WELL INFO
	EASI & ORPHAN WELLS
	DRAKE WELL MUSEUM
	OIL CREEK STATE PARK
	OIL 150
	VENANGO CONSERVATION DISTRICT

Venango PA SEC

Welcome Venango PA SEC is part of the Venango County Retired and Senior Volunteer Program(RSVP)and works in cooperation with the 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 through stream monitoring, location of abandoned oil and gas wells and education.
We encourage our senior population to use their expertise for environmental protection and stewardship activities.

Our Area - Venango Land

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.

Stream Monitoring Project

Althought 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 Corp. 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

Orphaned Wells Project

September 2010

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 seperate layers to combine and in some cases contaminate other layers. In our area oil and gas exploration has been going on since 1859.

The Orphan Wells Project began as a pilot program to engages 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 DEP to 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 PA SEC use their talents to locate and mark suspected well locations and submit their data to DEP for evaluation.

For additional information click the Orphan Wells links.

Watershed Education

To encourage others we participate in a variety of educational programs. We make presentations to local civic groups and work with students from 3rd through 12th grades.

We recently completed a stream bank restoration project in which 4th grade students from Cooperstown and Rocky Grove Elementary School planted over 500 Silky and Black Willow and Red Osier Dogwood along a section of reconstructed bank of Lake Creek in Cooperstown. As part of the project students recieved instructions about stream channel formation, non-point source pollution and aquatic macro-invertebrates. With the use of a "stream table" students were able to view the flow of water through a simulated stream. They learned about erosion of the bank and deposition of sediments in pools. Through the use of a model town students learned how run off from parking lots, farms and golf courses can cause stream pollution. With aquatic macro-invertebrates embeded in plastic students learned about the adaptations aquatic insects use to survive and how pollution effects the numbers of aquatic organisms in a stream.

In another project 6th grade students from Cranberry Elementary School collected aquatic macro-invertebrates from a pond on the grounds of the Izaak Walton League. In this project students used dip nets to collect aquatic organisms then sorted and counted their catch. The results were recorded on water quality assessment sheets and a score was used to determine the health of the pond.

In other projects students used D nets to collect macro-invertebrates from a stream in Two Mile Run County Park. The students then sort and count their catch and record their results to determine the quality of the stream. As part of their observations students learned about the adaptations used by different macro-invertebrates to survive in many different areas of the stream.

VENANGO PA SEC
Oil City, PA
phone: 814-676-6435

4542 Visitors

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