From StateImpact PA: He wanted to help Snitz Creek. Instead, he watched Sunoco pollute it.

The following article excerpt is reprinted – with permission – from the StateImpact Pennsylvania website.


Russ Collins is hoping to make sure the restoration project is not a lost opportunity

Rachel McDevitt
Rachel McDevitt is a reporter for StateImpact Pennsylvania at WITF.

by Rachel McDevitt

Whenever long-time fly fisherman Russ Collins looks at streams around Lebanon County, the wheels in his head are turning about how to protect them from pollution and help them run faster to flush out sediment.

“There’s a saying that everybody lives downstream from somebody else,” Collins said. “And it is important to take care of the water in your own footprint so that the next person down doesn’t have to deal with the pollution issues.”

Collins has spent his retirement working with the Doc Fritchey Chapter of Trout Unlimited to get grant money for restoration projects and meeting with landowners to convince them to let the work happen.


Listen to the story:

But one project has been almost taunting him.

It involves a stretch of Snitz Creek in West Cornwall Township, where Sunoco needed to cross with its Mariner East pipeline.

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