Nature Center Gets Federal Funds: Money Will Support Education, Research at 750-Acre Preserve.

By Christian Berg, The Morning Call, Allentown, Pa.

Mar. 4–The federal government will provide more than $300,000 this year to support educational programs at the Lehigh Gap Nature Center, which is successfully restoring a 750-acre section of once barren mountainside in Lehigh and Carbon counties.

U.S. Rep. Charlie Dent, R-15th, visited the center Monday afternoon to announce the $335,042 allocation from the U.S. Department of Education. Dent, who was instrumental in including the funding in the federal budget, said he is proud to play a small part in center’s environmental success story.

“The mountain is coming back, thanks to your work, and we’re just delighted you are here,” Dent said during a news conference outside the center’s Osprey House overlooking the Lehigh River. “This whole area is a wonderful laboratory for students.”

Dan Kunkle, the Nature Center’s executive director, said the federal funding is the single largest contribution received to date toward the organization’s $3-million capital campaign to expand programs and facilities.

In addition to supporting public education programs and events for elementary, high school and college students, Kunkle said the federal money will help develop a K-12 conservation curriculum, teacher training programs, Web-based distance learning and research projects that will be conducted at the center’s Lehigh Gap Refuge in Washington and East Penn townships.

“This support from you is a lot more than just the money,” Kunkle told Dent. “The stamp of approval and the confidence you have shown in us through this funding is just as meaningful.”

The funding announced Monday covers almost half of the $750,000 the Nature Center hopes to raise for program initiatives, which also include interpretive signs, nature exhibits, hiking trails and improved access to the Lehigh River.

Most of the remaining $2.25 million being raised through the campaign will go toward facility enhancements, including more than $1.5 million to expand the center’s Osprey House headquarters to include a visitor and education center. Another major goal is the construction of a $250,000 field classroom for visiting students.

Kunkle said the campaign has secured roughly $700,000 so far but added that applications for funding from additional sources, such as the Trexler Trust and state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, won’t be considered until later this year. Kunkle said the center has already hired construction management firm Alvin H. Butz of Allentown, and officials hope to begin work on the improvements by the end of this year.

Tackling a daunting task

The Lehigh Gap Refuge accounts for just a fraction of the several thousand acres of Blue Mountain terrain that was transformed from a healthy forest to barren moonscape by decades of toxic emissions from the former New Jersey Zinc Co.’s smelting plant in Palmerton.

Between the time the plant opened in 1898 and the time it closed in 1987, historians estimate more than 300 million tons of zinc ore were processed there. A near-continuous line of zinc ore mixed with coal was fed into gigantic furnaces, where the mix was heated and zinc-laden vapors were collected to be processed and sent across the country for medicinal and industrial uses.

While the zinc gathered at the plant may have had healing qualities, the reddish smoke emitted from the plant’s smoke stacks certainly did not. Plant emissions contained high levels of zinc and other heavy metals such as lead and cadmium that polluted the river, nearby streams and the soil on the mountainside. Kunkle said other contaminants such as arsenic and sulphur dioxide added to the problem.

The result was a gradual death of all vegetation in areas where emissions settled in large quantities. Once the plants died and their roots rotted, there was nothing left to prevent the soil from washing away in the rain. In time, thousands of acres of mountainside withered, and a once lush forest was replaced by a barren, rocky wasteland.

In 1983, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency declared all of Palmerton and portions of surrounding townships a Superfund site. Government-regulated cleanup work has been going on ever since.

A 2005 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service study showed that the entire area — including the borough, Lehigh River, Aquashicola Creek and the Blue Mountain — remains saturated with lead and other pollutants.

Roots of restoration

The Lehigh Gap Nature Center bought its denuded, 750-acre property above the Lehigh River in 2002. Efforts to revegetate the area began the following year when the center planted 56 one-acre test plots with cool season and warm season grasses.

Success with those early efforts proved those prairie grasses were capable of living on the mountainside where nothing else could, and that led to a large-scale planting effort that covered the mountainside.

Much of the work was done by a tractor with tank-style treads that is able to pull a large manure spreader across the rough terrain. The spreader is loaded with a mix of lime, fertilizer, compost and grass seed which is spread about an inch thick directly onto the rocky ground. More inaccessible portions of the mountain were seeded by hand, while the very top was bombed with seed by airplanes.

Now, five years later, most of the Lehigh Gap Refuge is covered with lush grassland habitat that is a magnet for wildlife such as songbirds, hawks, whitetail deer, foxes and coyotes.

The impressive results have earned the Nature Center numerous conservation awards and attracted government and university researchers who believe Lehigh Gap Refuge could serve as a national model for how to restore highly polluted landscapes.

For more information about the Lehigh Gap Nature Center, visit the organization’s Web site at http://www.lgnc.org .

cberg@mcall.com

610-778-2252

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