By Tina Alvey
Register-Herald Reporter
Lewisburg — LEWISBURG — Thanks to a high school science project and a local watershed association, the Greenbrier County Commission may be persuaded to spend money on the Meadow River area.
A group of Greenbrier West High School students and their teachers spoke to the county commission Tuesday evening, explaining their InvenTeam project and asking for financial support for the $50,000 endeavor.
The project’s goal is to create an environmental monitoring sensor to be used to investigate the Meadow River wetlands. Students are customizing a large, remote-control helicopter and designing a deployment system that will deliver sensors to sites deep in the target area, which is not accessible by traditional means.
“These kids came in on snow days (to work on the project). They came in on weekends when the weather was horrible,” GWHS chemistry teacher Angie Leef said, expressing pride in her students’ dedication.
Leef was instrumental in getting the project off the ground, initiating the application process to get $10,000 in funding from a Lemelson-MIT InvenTeam grant. Greenbrier West is the only school in West Virginia ever to receive such a grant.
Teacher Vickie Neel explained that the students’ inventions, which have many possible practical applications, will be patented by the school.
Although the initial stage of the project will wrap up with a presentation at MIT in June, instructors hope to continue the wetlands monitoring for several years, involving more students in the effort.
The $30,000 still needed, according to documentation presented to the county commission, will be used to sustain the project beyond this first year and to send all the students who have worked so diligently on the inventions to the presentation at MIT this summer.
Commission president Betty Crookshanks noted the county receives federal funds as compensation for the lack of property tax revenue from national forest land located within Greenbrier’s boundaries. That money can only be spent in certain areas, such as conservation, she explained.
Crookshanks said she would look into allocating some of those funds to the InvenTeam project.
According to Commissioner Brad Tuckwiller, the fund currently stands at a little over $18,000.
A second appeal for funding related to the wetlands area came from Matt Ford, president of the Meadow River Watershed Association, and conservationist Dennis Burns.
Ford outlined the steps his organization has taken over the past year to restore the Western Greenbrier Youth Park, located along U.S. 60. Among the improvements MRWA instituted were the removal of trash, such as abandoned cars and tires, and the installation of culverts to assist drainage of certain areas of the park.
This year, MRWA hopes to put in a walking trail and an educational kiosk, as well as a rain garden, which is another drainage solution.
“Rain garden is a feel-good word for an infiltration basin,” Burns noted.
It will allow the stormwater runoff to gradually seep into the ground rather than funneling it quickly to the river. By encouraging a slow soak through vegetation, the rain garden fosters the natural removal of contaminants from the runoff.
Burns and Ford asked the commission for $6,920, representing a 40 percent match for grant money they have already secured for the project from the Clean Water Act Section 319 Fund.
Unfortunately, the matching funds cannot come from a federal source, which may prevent the county commission from using the previously mentioned forest revenue.
Crookshanks said she would pose the question to the county’s prosecuting attorney, who serves as the commission’s legal counsel in such matters.
— E-mail: talvey@register-herald.com
