Local Environmental Stewards to be Acknowledged at Regional Banquet

Dinah DiMeolo (top, left) assists Pennsylvania State wildlife officers with tagging a bear. She has also assisted in the tagging of elk calves (above) and harvesting tissue from deer and coyotes for testing. Patriot’s Cove founder Jeff Swire (below, center) gives visitors the lay of the land prior to bringing the first veterans and first responders to the site for trout fishing in Beaver Run in April.

Story by Rick Hiduk

(Also published in the Rocket-Courier)

Wyoming County will be well represented at the 28th annual NEPA Environmental Partners Awards Dinner with both a Tunkhannock High School (THS) senior and a trout preserve that serves wounded veterans and wounded first responders among those to be honored. The event at the Woodlands Inn & Resort on Thursday, Oct. 25, will be a big night for Dinah DiMeolo of Tunkhannock and Patriots Cove in Noxen.

The Pennsylvania Environmental Council is a statewide organization seeking protection of water supplies, the fostering of healthy communities, and addressing energy and climate issues. The Luzerne Chapter, serving northeast Pennsylvania is made up of state agencies like the PA Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) and Department of Environmental Protection, corporations like Procter & Gamble Paper Products Company, and Wilkes University.

Environmental Partnership Awards are bestowed upon four entities and two individuals each year. In addition to Patriots Cove, founded by retired 24-year Army Veteran Jeff Swire, recipients will include Don Baylor of Monroe County for his work to protect streams in Monroe County, the Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor for their completion of a 165-mile stretch of the D&H Rail Trail, and Leggett and Platt, Inc. for fostering a spirit of environmental stewardship among their employees and business partners.

DiMeolo will be the sole recipient of the Emerging Environmental Leader Award. The only honor that might garner more attention that evening is the annual Thomas P. Shelburne Environmental Leadership Award that will be given to Craig Todd for his work with the Monroe County Conservation District on numerous environmental initiatives.

I did not realize how big an award this is until I found out I actually won,” DiMeolo said modestly. She credits her biology teacher Karen Kutish for both nurturing her interest in environmental studies and nominating her for the citation.

Kutish recalled that, when she read the criteria for the award that was sent to environmental educators throughout the region, “I thought, Wow, this award was made for Dinah. She’s a hunter, and she loves to fish.”

Their relationship started when DiMeolo was a sophomore taking honors biology and continued with advanced biology. DiMeolo is currently the school’s Environmental Team leader and an alumni of the Wildlife Leadership Academy of PA. Kutish noted that DiMeolo loves everything related to the outdoors.

The THS Environmental Team travels with groups from other schools to state parks where they conduct research on various environmental aspects and conditions. The field trips with DCNR educators cover topics ranging from watershed health, biodiversity of woodlands, abandoned mine drainage and macro-invertebrates. DiMeolo excels at hand-son projects.

She ties her own flies to fish,” Kutish related. “They take hours to tie, and most teenagers this age are not sitting for hours to tie lures. She’s a little different than other students that I’m used to dealing with.”

Swire’s interest in water health and fish habitat was borne of a combination of the purchase of 18 acres of land with his wife near their Noxen Township home and a chance viewing of a local television program about the declining population of native brook trout. With about three quarters of a mile of a small creek called Beaver Run meandering through the property, Swire said, “I though that maybe there was something that I could do about it.”

His initial inquiries of several universities to conduct a water study for him were fruitless, but the soldier in him wouldn’t give up. Swire caught the ear of Wyoming County Conservation District watershed specialist Bernie Scalvo, who was interested in helping him determine if it was worth trying to do something to restore what was found to be poor water quality.

That began the path of the relationship that we built between our family and the Wyoming County Conservation District,” Swire related. Phosphate levels were high. Oxygen was low. And there was an old septic on the property that was leeching directly into waterway. The septic was pumped and collapsed, and Swire and his friends constructed water features from logs and large rocks.

The structures allowed for more oxygen to be created in the stream,” said Scalvo. “We noticed marked improvement in water quality.” The three-quarter mile section of creek that is now flourishing. Trout stocked for Patriots Cove clients remained well after most of the anglers were gone. “Even though they have the ability to travel out, they seem to be staying in there,” Scalvo said of the trout. “They are staying in those areas because the water quality is healthier.”

A fly fishing platform for track chairs and wheel chairs was just one way the site was made handicap accessible. There is also a lodge and a separate activity center for veterans and first responders. “Our goal is not to give them just one day of getting out,” Swire offered. “We want them to know that there are people here for them who understand them.”

From the environmental aspect, the next step for Swire is to clean up all four and a half miles of Beaver Run. We are going to do it all with volunteers and donations.

We will continue to monitor for water quality, and we’re going to work with them to locate some more funding,” Scalvo added. “We’re happy to be a part of it. It is a good cause, and he was funding a lot of it himself.”

Dimeolo’s current project at THS is Trout in the Classroom. Tanks and filtration systems are in place, and fish eggs should arrive the second week of November. She is working with juniors and sophomores to take over the project in the coming years. DiMeolo is starting to look at colleges at which she hopes to major in environmental science and minor in dance.

She’s passionate about pursuing a career in something outdoors,” Kutish related. “There are so many different avenues that she could go down. I’ll be curious to see how it all goes down when she gets into college.”

Dinah is the daughter of Dan and Vanessa DiMeolo.

Read more about Patriot’s Cove here: http://www.endlessmtnlifestyles.com/?p=10220

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *