ReImagine! Turtle Creek Watershed Communities. Yay!

Monroeville CommUNITY Day, ReImagine! Turtle Creek Watershed Communities, and more:

Please join us at our booth on Monroeville CommUnity Day on Saturday, July 27, 2019 in Monroeville Park from 11:00 AM to 6:30 PM! 

Our next meeting of Sustainable Monroeville is on Monday evening, August 5, 2019 at 7:00 PM in the downstairs program room of the Monroeville Public Library. Come learn about our newest collaborative initiative. This amazing vision, ReImagine! Turtle Creek Watershed Communities is inspired by ReImagine! Beaver, ReImagine! Butler, and the League of Women Voters. We'll also review the work of Sustainable Monroeville since its inception ten years ago.

Save the Dates:

• Turtle Creek Watershed Association Board Meeting on Tuesday, July 30, 2019 at 5:30 PM-Murrysville, PA
• Sustainable Monroeville on Monday evening, August 5, 2019 at the Monroeville Public Library in the downstairs program room
• Monroeville Citizens' Night on Thursday evening, August 8, 2019 at 7:00 PM-Monroeville Municipal building
• Monroeville Council meeting on Tuesday evening, August 13, 2019 at the Monroeville Municipal building

We have been asking at each Monroeville Citizens' Night and Monroeville Council meeting who owns the mineral rights under the municipal pool property. We continue to wait for an answer from our municipal attorney, Mr. Wratcher. 

Sustainable Monroeville has also been asking why Monroeville Council is not concerned about putting a protective of the citizens of Monroeville detailed oil and gas ordinance in place just like has been done in Churchill, Forest Hills, South Fayette, Oakmont, and the City of Pittsburgh. 

In collaboration with the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania (LWV), we'll begin the process to ReImagine! the Communities in the Turtle Creek Watershed. We have reached out to a few other organizations and are waiting to hear back from them to let us know if they'd love to collaborate with us. If you have ideas about which individuals and organizations throughout the Turtle Creek Watershed would love to join in this amazing process, please let us know by messaging the Sustainable Monroeville Facebook page or to sustainablemonroeville@gmail.com. Sustainable Monroeville will be a participant in this process. There will be many leaders. How about you?! :)

To see which communities we're referring to, go the the Turtle Creek Watershed Association website and look at the map of the many communities that are part of the Turtle Creek Watershed. 

It will be wonderful when we can all feel comfortable to swim again in Turtle Creek and know that we are doing all we can to promote the health and wellness of ourselves and of our wonderful region by promoting healthy businesses, healthy economic development and so much more! This day will happen when acid mine drainage from sixty years ago or more is addressed with mindfullness and full responsibility is taken by all of us to clean up this mess instead of building on top of it and pretending it's not there! The Turtle Creek Watershed Association (TCWA) is doing well addressing the issue of Acid Mine Drainage in Irwin, PA. They just had a wonderful event a few weeks ago to raise awareness and raise funds for both their organization and for the city of Irwin. Support the Turtle Creek Watershed Association! There's also a newly formed Chalfont Watershed Association that is in the process of raising 

It is important for us to be proactive and not allow further pollution to our airshed and watershed with upcoming proposals for further extractive industries such as the Marcellus Shale/Natural gas industry. The natural gas industry is not required to comply with the environmental standards of even the coal industry. And look what mess we are in sixty years later with acid mine drainage!!! We must be sure we have protective of the citizens oil and gas ordinances in place in our populated regions. Minimally, we must insist that industry complies with existing environmental standards and not simply pay fines when they do not follow the rules. If you're not familiar with the oil and gas issues in Southwest PA, here's a few wonderful resources to begin with:

• The book Amity and Prosperity by Eliza Griswald
• The League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania Shale Gas Extraction and Public Health, A Resource Guide
• The Environmental Health Project: www.environmentalhealthproject.org
• The Climate Reality Project: www.climaterealtiyproject.org

Thank you all for your belief in truth and your work in moving us into the more beautiful world we all know in our hearts is possible.

Blessings to us all,

Elisa Beck, on behalf of over 125 individuals who have been engaged with Sustainable Monroeville for a decade.