Rep. Hanna Honored by Trout Unlimited

LOCK HAVEN – Representative Mike Hanna recently received an award from Amy Wolfe, director of the Trout Unlimited Eastern Abandoned Mine Program and the Pennsylvania Eastern Brook Trout Habitat Initiative, for his longstanding support for the Kettle Creek Watershed. Groups like Trout Unlimited and the Kettle Creek Watershed Association as well as all of central Pennsylvania are celebrating the 15th anniversary of the Kettle Creek Watershed Acid Mine Reclamation Project. Beginning in 1998, the association began tackling the lack of holdover stocked trout in Kettle Creek. The water was often too warm during the summer. The main stem of Kettle was too wide and too shallow with inadequate fish habitat. Through the group’s efforts – Ms. Wolfe was the group’s watershed coordinator until 2007 — Kettle Creek was chosen as Trout Unlimited’s third Home Rivers Initiative. With support from many corners, association volunteers built fish habitat. More than five miles of native trees and shrubs were planted to promote stream bank stability. Most noteworthy are the passive systems that were built to treat the abandoned mine drainage that severely impaired the lower segment of the 255-square-mile watershed. Besides the ground work, trainings and youth education programs became a major component of restoration in the Kettle Creek Watershed. Today, brook trout are now able to live in this stream from its headwaters to mouth and are reproducing in the entire length of the stream. Photo Provided