Watershed Conservation Plan - Destination Erie

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND PLAN AUTHORSHIP
The Lake Erie Region Conservancy (LERC) acknowledges the support of the Pennsylvania Department
of Conservation and Natural Resources for the financial support necessary to develop this planning document.
Mercyhurst College provided office space, administrative, and computer support through Mercyhurst
College's Archaeological Institute, Civic Institute, and Biology Department.
Chuck Murray and Roger Kenyon of the Lake Erie Research Unit of the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat
Commission provided useful comments and technical reports on Pennsylvania's Lake Erie and tributary
fisheries. Mark Lethaby and Brian Gray shared unpublished and published records on the watershed's reptiles
and amphibians. Robert Wellington provided access to unpublished reports and technical documents available
in the files of the Erie County Department of Health. Edwin Masteller (Professor Emeritus, Pennsylvania
State University, The Behrend College) and William Dovensky (Albion, Pennsylvania) provided copies of
unpublished technical reports. Other organizations that provided useful records and reports included the
Pennsylvania Natural Heritage Program, Carnegie and Cleveland Museums of Natural History, the Ohio State
University Museum of Biological Diversity, the USGS Water Science Center (New Cumberland,
Pennsylvania), and the office of Andrew Martin Associates Inc. (Erie, Pennsylvania).
Ed Kissell (S.O.N.S. of Lake Erie Fishing Club) provided copies of historical documents related to area
fisheries, Erik Weber (Erie County Department of Health) provided unpublished data on bacterial levels in
the watershed's streams, and Dr. Pamela Silver (Professor of Biology, Pennsylvania State University, The
Behrend College) provided copies of unpublished technical reports on her amphibian research. Lori Boughton
of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, Office of the Great Lakes, provided
constructive criticism on an early draft of the conservation plan.
The Lake Erie Region Conservancy also acknowledges the contributions by Mercyhurst faculty, staff,
and students, including: Joseph Morris, who worked with his political science students in conducting a survey
of citizens in the Pennsylvania Lake Erie Watershed; Melissa Borgia, a graduate student in education at
Mercyhurst who conducted outreach programs with school districts in the watershed; Edward Hess, director
of the Mercyhurst Grants Office; and Cathy Pedler, Environmental Sustainability Coordinator, who provided
administrative services. LERC also acknowledges its board of directors in their advisory role during the
conservation plan process, including: J. Michael Campbell, Chris English, Tom Fuhrman, Jeff Gault, Jim
Gwinn, Ed Kissell, Pat Lupo, Chris Magoc, Cathy Pedler, David Skellie, Patrick Traphagan, Eva Tucker,
Christine Hetz-Phillips, and Brian Winslow.
While the authorship of this plan is credited organizationally to LERC, several individuals provided
valuable written contributions. The geological description of the watershed was written by M. Raymond
Buyce (Associate Professor, Geology Department, Mercyhurst College). The prehistoric and historic cultural
contexts of the watershed were written by Allen Quinn (Project Archaeologist and Instructor, Mercyhurst
Archaeological Institute) and Judith Thomas (Historic Archaeologist, Mercyhurst Archaeological Institute)
respectively, with contributions from David Pedler (Editor and Graphics Specialist, Mercyhurst
Archaeological Institute), who also described the distribution of the watershed's archaeological and cultural
resources and formulated the prehistoric settlement model. The chapters describing the watershed's
presettlement and historic human-watershed interaction, water resources, and natural resources were written
by J. Michael Campbell (Professor, Biology Department, and Associate Dean of The Zurn School of Natural
Sciences and Mathematics, Mercyhurst College). The chapter describing the watershed's recreational
resources and current public interaction with those resources was written by David Pedler and J. Michael
Campbell. The description of land use and local/regional planning was written by David Skellie (Coastal
Land Use and Economic Specialist, Pennsylvania Sea Grant) and J. Michael Campbell. Finally the plan
recommendations and priorities and strategies for action were written by J. Michael Campbell, David Pedler,
and Tom Fuhrman.
The plan was edited and illustrated by David Pedler, who also provided all GIS mapping and analysis
contained in the plan.
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