One of the challenges in interpreting what the biggest threat of pollution in my area is, is the biggest source may not pose the biggest threat. You have to consider how and what the source of pollution comes in contact with, and the type of impact it has.

As far as water quality is concerned, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection released in its 2010 report that in April 2007 they completed a 10 year review of the wadeable water systems throughout Pennsylvania. The two largest problems found were agriculture and abandoned mine drainage. And the largest stressors were siltation and metals. However, they emphasize that other problems should not be minimized because they may impact the local environment differently. They provide an example of urban runoff/stormsewers being a minor problem in rural areas but major in metropolitan regions.

In addition to this report, they monitor the flesh of fish for possible contaminants, and inform the public through fish advisories when the need arises. The current advisory level is to limit PA fish consumption to once per week due to unknown contaminants.

While looking up air pollution monitoring, it’s clear that the highest rating of “Ozone PPD (Biglerville)” is just around noon when the sun is at its highest peak in the sky, and at its lowest just before dawn before the sun comes up. This makes perfect logical sense.

According to the 2007 Pennsylvania Ambient Air Quality Report (the latest available), the state of Pennsylvania keeps a spread of 207 different air quality monitors around the state to monitor six different air pollutants regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency. Those six pollutants are sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), carbon monoxide (CO),lead (Pb), Ozone (O3), and particulate matter (PM). Of those six, O3 and PM have been a consistent problem, while the remaining pollutants have stayed below the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS).

The EPA also keeps a “Toxic Release Inventory” that allows you to search by zip code to find out what toxic chemical releases and waste management activities have been reported in your area within the last year. My particular zip code showed a series of mineral toxins in three separate facilities from a local mill, a tile plant, and an elevator company. These toxins released amounted to several thousand pounds with of minerals reported, but several results left empty denoting several more unaccounted for.

It’s very difficult to say from these two assessments which is the bigger threat to the local environment. I don’t know the affects that air pollution has had on the water and fish, just as much as no one knows what affect water evaporation and the chemicals therein have had on the air pollution.

I would chance it to say that water and fish are more directly consumed into our bodies and filtered through our organs, whereas air pollutants can and will travel at loftier heights and distances and the potency would vary depending on local foliage and their ability to filtrate the air quality. The issue of mineral pollutants is also more likely a threat to water than it is to air. In fact I read an article in the news the other day down in Fort Detrick about the threat of Agent Orange in the ground water in Frederick Maryland where I work.

Since this area of Pennsylvania is so heavily forested, meaning more protected from air pollutants, it is my assumption that the water pollution is more of a direct threat to people in the Gettysburg area.

(Word Count: 591)

References:
9 News Now, “Contaminated Landfills Capped At Ft. Detrick”. WUSA9.com. July 23, 2010 <http://www.wusa9.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=105035&catid=158>.

“Integrated Water Quality Report – 2010″. Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. July 29, 2010 <http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/water_quality_standards/10556/integrated_water_quality_report_-_2010/682562>.

“Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) Program”. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. July 29, 2010 <http://www.epa.gov/tri/>.

“Pennsylvania Ambient Air Quality Report”. Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. July 29, 2010 <http://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/deputate/airwaste/aq/aqm/aqreport.htm>.

“Principal Pollutants Monitoring Sites”. Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. July 29, 2010 <http://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/deputate/airwaste/aq/aqm/copams.htm>.

“Ambient Air Monitoring Data Reports”. Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. July 29, 2010 <http://www.ahs2.dep.state.pa.us/aq_apps/aadata/default.asp>.

I use IESI trash service for my area, which delivers all garbage for this area to the Blue Ridge Landfill located on Orchard Rd. in Scotland, PA. It has a long list of clients from around the area, and is involved in three different programs from the Department of Environmental Protection. Air Quality, Land Recycling & Waste Management, Water Pollution Control, and Water Resources Management. They apparently also create 5.1MW of electricity from methane, which they sell to a power company, though I don’t know which one. This is a positive step in the “gas-to-energy” field, which leads me to believe they are at least -attempting- to be environmentally conscious, as much as a landfill can be anyway

My recycling is also picked up by IESI, but distributed among several facilities. Glass, plastics 1 & 2, aluminum and tin cans are taken to the Washington Township Recycle Center on Rt 16 in Rouserville, PA., and newspaper and cardboard are taken to Chambersburg Waste Paper on Loop Rd, Chambersburg, PA (who I might add, has a hilarious but awesome site logo).

Just doing this small essay has made me think about how intricate waste management systems are in general. Someone was able to create a method of garbage disposal, so that all consumers have to do is pay a quarterly fee and place two bins out on the end of their driveway once a week. Once that truck comes up early in the morning to pick these bins up, a whole array of systems and processes begins. Sorting, distribution, policy, environmental concerns and regulations. It’s a pretty complex process, and most people don’t appreciate the thought and the mistakes that must have gone into making it what it is today.

At the very least, people (myself included) should take a few more minutes to help out by making sure cans are clean, caps are off of soda bottles, and paper/magazines are sorted. Though in my case, we save all of our newspapers to use as starter for our woodstove in the winter.

As far as septic waste, which was not specifically requested in this article but I plan to include anyway, I have not had our septic cleaned yet since we just moved into our home. I am scheduled to have it cleaned in Spring of 2011, and will research and choose a company then to empty out our tank. At our old house before we moved here, our septic had not been cleaned by our landlord in over 29 years. I can only imagine where it has been going all of that time, or what the tank must look like. I feel sorry for any new owners who attempt to clean that up.

(Word Count: 453)

References:
Landfill Methane Outreach Program, “Pennsylvania Landfill Methane Projects”. Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. July 15, 2010 <http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/landfill_methane_outreach_program/14091/pa_landfill_methane_projects/589657>.

IESI District Market Manager, IESI Corporation.

The closest untended patch of nature to me is my back-yard, or along the edge of it. Behind my house is an undeveloped set of acreage probably a square-mile in size with gentle rolling hills and large boulders which are common for this area. There is a small house that rents a very small parcel of it about a half-mile back, but the whole of the acreage is owned by a development company.

The way I’ve come to understand it, developers bought the land back in the 80′s to develop, but the township has yet to give them permission to create a driveway onto any of the surrounding roads. They own an easement onto my property as of 1982 and 1985 (they purchased two separate ones), but nothing has been done with it since.

So there it lies, full of song-birds, deer, wild turkey’s, and barred owls among a mix of other critters. It is densely populated with foliage, black walnut, oaks, white birch, maples, and various other indigenous trees. My father and I have created several paths throughout there, and are currently encouraging the turkey population to come closer with gifts of cracked corn, and rotten fruit for the deer.

The divider between that property and my own is a narrow unnamed stream that feeds into Rock Creek below. If I ever get the money, I wouldn’t mind purchasing all of the woods back there and create my own little Gettysburg haven of wilderness. Right now it serves its purpose as my wild spot.

In general, this patch of land that I am on, and the land behind me was all once part of the encampment that surrounded the confederate military hospital two doors up. When dad and I plowed our garden last year, we found a rusted horseshoe, so I can only imagine back in the 1860′s, these woods were also used as cover and rest for their wounded.

(Word Count: 321)

Our household water comes from a 17 foot well set at the corner of our house. There is also an unnamed creek in our back yard that feeds into Rock Creek in Gettysburg and appears to come from an underground spring (as well as road spill-off). There are several surrounding streams nearby (50 in Adams County alone), but none seem to feed directly (from above-ground) into ours, though I’m sure the waterways underground do.

Rock Creek eventually feeds into the Monocacy River in Maryland, which eventually feeds into the Potomac River, which feeds into the Chesapeake Bay, which feeds into the Atlantic Ocean. Hard to believe that my little tiny stream here makes its way out all the way to the ocean from Gettysburg.

On a more mid-atlantic scale, the physiographic province that Gettysburg is located on (and oddly enough this is the same province I lived in when I started the CTP in Maryland), is the Piedmont Province. More specifically, I am in the Gettysburg-Newark Lowland Section of the Piedmont Province. This area is mainly rolling low hills developed on red sedimentary rock. The general drainage pattern is dendritic, or branched like a tree, and elevations are generally 100-200 feet (600 feet in some isolated hills, but Gettysburg as a whole ranges from 400-1000 feet above sea-level). This sedimentary rock in the area came from a narrow, inland dip that formed when North American and Africa separated more than 200 million years ago.

A lot of times after a heavy rain, we’ll see some trash spill over onto the banks of our stream. Chip bags or soft-drink containers. My cousin who has lived up here for years seems to think it’s from the campground up the way, but the stream that goes through there feeds into another leg of water that feeds into rock creek, which is downstream from us. So the trash could not come from there. My guess is it’s mostly from trash thrown on the side of the road, which is very very sad.

Besides a few small ponds that dot the countryside here, the next biggest body of water closest to me is called Lake Heritage. It appears to be a rather high-end community of lake-side homes, but I am unsure whether it feeds into my stream underground, I highly doubt it.

When researching local water concerns in the Gettysburg area, I was put in contact with the PA Department of Environmental Protection, specifically the Watershed Management Program. Through them I learned a lot of the biggest concerns locally are sediment and nutrients from local agriculture. These usually lead to increased nitrogen and phosphorus in the streams which cause algae growth which can deplete the amount of oxygen in the water, endangering aquatic life. It also affects the aquatic insects because it lays on the bottom of the stream as well, which covers their living spaces. Poor agricultural and farming practices can have a large amount to do with a lot of these particular concerns.

It appears that those that are not on independent water systems like us may also start to see severe limits to water supply due to development. The development is putting the aquifers at their limit of production and increasing the amount of storm-water running off, which reduces the amount of water recharging the aquifers. These storms can also have erosion effects on streams, which could affect my stream at some point.

(Word Count: 571)

References:
Physiographic Provinces of Pennsylvania. Bureau of Topographic and Geologic Survey. Landforms of Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. September 11, 2009 <http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/topogeo/map13/map13.aspx>

Brown, Andrew. GEOLOGY and the Gettysburg Campaign. Gettysburg: Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, 1962. <http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/topogeo/education/es5/es5.pdf>

Physiographic Provinces and Their Subdivisions in Maryland. Maryland Geological Survey. A Brief Description of the Geology of Maryland. Resource Assessment Service. September 11, 2009 <http://www.mgs.md.gov/esic/brochures/mdgeology.html>

Ground Water: Where Does It Come From?. Carroll County Health Department. Water Quality – Well Maintenance Handbook. Resource Assessment Service. September 11, 2009 <http://www.carrollhealthdepartment.dhmh.md.gov/envirohealth/wellhandbook.html>

Additional Source: http://maps.google.com

I cannot begin to apologize for the length of time this has taken.

It did take from December 2007 to July 2009 to get an answer, but honestly the last year I would not have had the inclination to work on it. What with losing our home to being homeless to buying a house in Gettysburg to completely focusing on my fiscal life.

But I am starting to feel the spiritual stir again. Not so much in my own Grove as of late, but always in ADF.

I only recently connected with this person during the summer of 2007, and through exchanges in letters and collect calls, you become fairly familiar with the U.S. Corrections system. How little they are provided, how misguided and empty they feel. When I tell him about things like ADF and CedarLight Grove, and all of the things I have done since he and I last spoke (about 1999 or so), he constantly tells me how much I’ve grown and how I’ve surpassed any dreams he had for me as a student. He’s so very proud of me, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel somewhat obligated and sad for him, and want to be able to provide for him what he did for me so many years ago. Spiritual Guidance.

Obviously not just for him, but for others as well, including in my own Grove.

I’ve never been much into Psychology, but I’ve always been a strong involuntary Empath. I hear these stories from my old mentor, about him and others in his cellblock, and it’s like an entirely different world. In fact it is an entirely different world, one that we’re most often shut out from. He hasn’t seen a tree in three years, imagine not being able to go outside for a hike or a walk in nature? And though it’s hard for me to sympathize with guilty criminals, or to even tell the guilty from the non-guilty, I hope that a little spirituality can make them feel somewhat human again.

I want to be able to complete as many of the training programs as possible that ADF provides. I want to start getting involved in local Interfaith Organizations. I want to be able to be a resource for the people, a tool that they can use to help guide, to listen, and to help bring peace. I want to do this for various avenues, my Grove, Prison Ministries, and local Pagans out here in the sticks.

2. Why do you want to be an ADF Priest in particular?
You know, as much as I sometimes feel like an outsider in ADF because I’m not as intellectually worldly, ADF is like a second home to me. The Dedicant’s Program helped with the intellectual part in a big way, because it supplied me with a lot of basic tools that I didn’t have before. The Clergy Program, and ADF in particular, is a journey to me. It’s a path in which I follow for myself, to better myself, to learn about things that may not otherwise be available.

ADF is so open and so welcoming of people, all people, and all opinions (usually). You’re not going to come here and feel judged or like there is a lack of knowledge among the leadership. It’s inspiring, truly, how much of a family ADF feels like to me. Why wouldn’t I want to be a Priest of ADF?

3. What does being a Priest mean to you in the cultural context of your Hearth Culture?
Since my original Hearth Culture is not indo-european, and cannot be used for this purpose, I’ve found myself becoming more interested in another. Honestly I’d like to be fairly versed on various cultures to provide for many different people. That’s my ultimate goal anyway, but that’s going to span longer than the Clergy Program in its entirety.

Since my recent genealogical discoveries of severe Germanic heritage, I’ve decided to focus on this hearth culture for purposes of ADF training programs.

Many priests are considered healers, but I also see them as guides. Someone who is knowledgeable in the ways of their culture (and has common sense in general) that people feel they can go to in a time of need. In the Norse culture, they are called Godhi’s, or “speakers of the Gods” (or Gythja, respectively) I feel that since my recent election as Senior Druid, I’ve been put in a position where I can be a leader and guide for the people. As a Priest I want to be a good representation of CedarLight Grove, and act as one of the spiritual connections between the Grove and the Shining Ones. And I wish to continue to learn and provide for my Grove and the neo-pagan community in general.

(Word Count: 821)

My original Hearth Culture being Native American, I’ve followed this particular one for some time now, really long before I ever realized it. Rediscovering my Cherokee heritage has given my spirituality a renewal, and is helping me to discover which parts of the world I come from. I intend to continue my study of the Cherokee and Lakota culture, despite my involvement with ADF.

But during my genealogy research, especially on my fathers side of the family, I also discovered a very large amount of German ancestry. I have the name of the Ship, the year, the location and everything where my great great grandfather Anton came over from Germany, but I’m still trying to find out where in Germany exactly. Since he came over in 1882 during the German Empire, the borders were entirely different than the Germany of today.

So I’ve decided to learn more about the Germanic culture (seeing as I’m fairly n00b), and pick up my roots there. This will be my ADF hearth culture so I can connect with those ancestors as I did with the Cherokee, and also have a focus for future training programs.

I’ve decided to keep all of my ADF correspondences on this blog, so I will have another category that will be for all the new stuff coming in. That should keep things separated enough.

~~~Crystal ###### ~~~
of CedarLight Grove, ADF

who has successfully completed the documentation requirements of the Ár nDraíocht Féin Dedicant Path.

As Preceptor of Ár nDraíocht Féin, I’d like to welcome Crystal among those folks who’ve taken the time to learn what ADF is all about and make it a major part of their lives’ spiritual paths.

N.B. PLEASE DO NOT RESPOND DIRECTLY TO THIS EMAIL, but send your congratulations to Crystal directly.

Best wishes,
Raven Mann
ADF Preceptor

I’m #92 of the current active members to complete the program. One of the first 100!

As explained in my “about” page concerning this dedicant’s journal, I technically pull from many different hearth cultures. My patron, Athena, a Greek Goddess of war and wisdom. My Grove, CedarLight, mainly Celtic, with some dabblings in Norse. My other patron (I’m not worried about being politically correct here), I’ve been exploring Odin, also a God of War in the Nordic culture. And then there’s the lifestyle and purpose in which I choose to serve, which is strongly Native American. When it came time to write an essay about one ore two of these, it was a bit of a task choosing which one.

But the one with the most influence, is surely the Native American.

I feel the need to include a disclaimer on such a topic though. I am part Cherokee, and am even learning to speak Cherokee, but I was mostly raised a plain white farm girl. I have never lived on a reservation, I’ve never been taught by an Elder, and I don’t claim to be a teacher or expert on Native American Spirituality. I’m a student seeking knowledge in the most respectful way possible. I am fully aware that most Native Americans do not like the neo-pagan movement and it’s ability to cut and paste spiritual concepts from different cultures and make it their own. I’m aware that most people make a mockery of any type of religion or spiritual practice that is not of their own roots and culture. I’m also aware that if I’m going to learn a spiritual practice and live that way of life, I need to learn from the source.

I -have- been in semi-regular contact with a Lakota-Sioux elder from the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Before that most of my study has been from books with a very cautious eye, as well as the teachings of my father. I do hope to eventually live near a reservation so that I can correctly understand the culture of the original America’s, as I would do for any culture I had interest in.

I chose this particular Hearth Culture because of my ancestry, because of my strong warrior roots, and because of my strong survival instincts, all which are (in my mind) intertwined with this way of life.

That being said, my choice of culture is probably one of the most difficult to integrate into ADF style liturgy and mindset. There are so many different tribes that worship many different ways. A lot of private experimentation and research is in order to even match the two styles of worship.

Almost all Native American tribes acknowledge some form of the Earth Mother and Sky Father. There is an embedded balance there, much like in neo-pagan worship. You could even compare some types of Native American Deity to Wicca, in the fact that they see the spirit as all encompassing of both male and female energies. In the Sioux tribe, their term for the great spirit is Wakan Tanka, yet they also hold reverence for the White Buffalo Calf Woman who came to their ancestors and gave them the 7 rituals of the Lakota people as well as the peace pipe.

This gave me a little room to work with, if I was to try and integrate Native American spirituality into ADF style liturgy.

But the reality of it is, I don’t see the need or have the desire to combine the two cultures. My spirituality is more of a way of life, how I live each day, rather than trying to cram it into another cultural style. I may go worship in a Celtic fashion 8 times a year, but everyday I live and breathe the way my ancestors have instilled it in my blood. I worship the Earth Mother and the Sky Father by teaching myself the skills and method in which my ancestors used, such as brain tanning, archery hunting, and not being wasteful in anything that I do.

That’s the purpose of all spiritual worship, to learn from the past and to live the best life that I can through a moral code.

(Word Count: 685)