College Receives Grant from Pa. DEP for Watershed Protection

April 8, 2010

The ALLARM grant will help monitor and protect the area's watershed.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has awarded Dickinson College’s Alliance for Aquatic Resource Monitoring (ALLARM) a grant of $30,000 for its ongoing watershed protection efforts.

The grant is ALLARM’s share of a $350,000 award to given to the “Consortium for Scientific Assistance to Watersheds (C-SAW),” an eight-member consortium that includes ALLARM, the United States Geological Survey and the Stroud Water Research Center. The consortium provides free technical assistance to more than 200 watershed based organizations in the state. The grant will enable ALLARM to work with volunteer stream organizations interested in conducting stream monitoring.

Through the grant, ALLARM provides technical assistance in the form of training, resources, mentoring and quality control laboratory analyses for watershed organizations. ALLARM also will collaborate with other C-SAW partners to provide educational workshops on water quality topics ranging from natural gas to stormwater monitoring through the end of 2010.

Since budget constraints led to the demise of DEP’s Citizens’ Volunteer Monitoring Program, it is especially important for C-SAW partners, including ALLARM, to provide the direct technical and programmatic support volunteer-based community organizations need to assess, restore and protect their local watersheds.