The Head of Three Rivers Project is a part of the Appalachian Coal Country Watershed Team, a partnership between the Office of Surface Mining (OSM) and the AmeriCorps*VISTA program. For more information about this partnership, please visit the ACCWT website. The local sponsor for the Letcher Co. project is the Eastern Kentucky Environmental Research...
The Head of Three Rivers Project is working with the Cowan Community Action Group to monitor water along Cowan Creek, through a grant received from Kentucky River Authority. The monitoring has shown high levels of chromium in the creek, but followup testing has been contradictory. More testing is scheduled for summer 2008. The project...
Many churches in Letcher County practice immersion baptism in the creeks near their sanctuaries. Because of high levels of bacteria in many of those creeks, The Head of Three Rivers is seeking to monitor those creeks and engage local churches in those efforts. The World Wildlife Fund has granted the project $5,000 through the...
Fishpond Lake is a beautiful, 43-acre county-owned lake at Payne Gap in Letcher County. It has picnic areas, primitive camping and is a popular fishing spot. Unfortunately, the Head of Three Rivers Project has discovered low, but detectible levels of chromium contamination in the headwaters of the lake. Since the county would like to...
Fecal coliform bacteria counts as high as 150 times the limit for human contact have been recorded in Blair Branch, a second-order stream near the community of Isom. Part of the problem is straight pipes that send sewage directly into the stream, but most of the problem is simply caused by a lack of...
The Great Eastern Trail extends 1,800 miles from the Florida Panhandle to the Finger Lakes of New York. The Pine Mountain Trail State Park is a linear Kentucky State Park that passes through Letcher County and makes up a portion of the Great Eastern Trail. The Head of Three Rivers Project is involved in...
