To Which You Might Be Responding, What? Who? What?

A sea change may be coming to the Kiski-Conemaugh River Valley – and, perhaps, to the Ligonier Valley as well. After 13 years with the Kiski-Conemaugh Stream Team, Missy Reckner is leaving for a new position as Program Director of Penguin Court.

To which you might be responding, “What? Who? What?”

However, there are people throughout southwestern Pennsylvania – even statewide – who will respond to this news with “Really? When? Wow!” Forin water conservation and AMD treatment circles, Missy is well-known as an innovator of water-quality programs.

The Kiski-Conemaugh Stream Team’s missionseems simple: To monitor waterways’ conditions by gathering water samples for testingon a regular basis.

That missionbecomes complex when put into practice. Each waterway needs to be sampled in multiple locations at specific times during all four seasons in standardized ways that can be compared with other samples over time with an acceptable degree of accuracy.

In the case of the Kiski-Conemaugh River Watershed, that means 260 sampling sites scattered across five counties within the 1,887-square-mile river basin. Volunteers must be trained, supplied and committed to visiting each assigned site four times a year, obtain proper samples and accurate field measurements, then submit the samples for testing.

The resulting mountain of data can be used to determinewhether our waterways are declining or improving in quality, measure the effectiveness of treatment systems, decide whether a stream could support aquatic life and provide the data for grant applications.

This has been Missy’s work since 2005, when she started with the K-C Stream Team and especially since 2007, when she assumed the role of Director.In addition to organizing the data collection, she’s had to find the money to operate the program each year and pay her own salary.

After gaining experience and expertise, she started to work with watershed groups to produce conservation plans for their respective streams. From 2013 to 2017, she led a massive effort to collect, organize and evaluate data for an updated Kiski-Conemaugh River Watershed Report – a careful look at how the river basin has changed since its initial assessment in the mid-1990s.

Then there’s the data logger program, which can quickly flag pollution incidents.Finally, the Trout in the Classroom program enables elementary school students to raise trout from eggs in a classroom aquarium, learn about coldwater fisheries and then release the trout in the spring.

These innovative programs have brought the K-C Stream Team statewide recognition and the respected Western Pennsylvania Environmental Award. And for the past 11 years, the Kiski-Conemaugh Stream Team and Missy Reckner have been synonymous. But no longer.

Missy’s been hired by the Brandywine Conservancy of Chadds Ford, PA to become Program Director of Penguin Court near Laughlintown in the Ligonier Valley. Never heard of Penguin Court? Frankly, neither had I.

Penguin Court was the 900-acre estate of Richard Mellon Scaife next door to the Rolling Rock Club. So named because penguins used to roam there, the estate was given to the Brandywine Conservancy as a naturecenter after Scaife’s death.

The new owner wants to make Penguin Court’s resources, which include a conservatory, a greenhouse, a pond and all of that acreage, more available to the public, especially for educational purposes. Missy’s job will be to figure out how to do that.

Having watched Missy work over the past 13 years, I expect that you’ll be hearing a lot more about Penguin Court in the future – and that it will have a significant impact on environmental education within the region.

Meanwhile, the Conemaugh Valley Conservancy, which sponsors the K-C Stream Team, needs to find a capable and energetic person to replace Missy, because this program is at the core of the CVC’s environmental mission.

For the sake of environmental and water conservation initiatives here, let’s hope this Alleghenies sea change raises all boats.