Naturally good initiative
Range Resources recently received a Corporate Conservation Award from the National Wild Turkey Federation in recognition of its work to restore 33 acres in Cross Creek County Park and convert the area into wildlife habitats.
Range Resources recently received a Corporate Conservation Award from the National Wild Turkey Federation in recognition of its work to restore 33 acres in Cross Creek County Park and convert the area into wildlife habitats.
AVELLA – Range Resources employees have another feather in their caps – or hard hats. The company received a statewide corporate conservation award from the National Wild Turkey Federation for its initiative to establish wildlife habitats in Cross Creek County Park last year.
“This conservation award is something very special to Range and all of our employees, many of whom are avid outdoorsmen and women,” said Mike Mackin, stakeholder relations manager at Range.
Mackin, who grew up in the area and often visited Cross Creek park with his family, said it looks “drastically different now,” thanks to new trails and park upgrades. Range has 33 active natural gas wells in the park, and another 20 wells run horizontally under park grounds. In addition, Range has two wells that run underneath Mingo Creek County Park, and Range expects those wells to begin producing later this year.
In total, Washington County received more than $17 million in royalties from the gas development at Cross Creek since 2007.
But drilling meant that certain areas of the park needed to be reclaimed once operations were completed, and Range employees took a proactive approach. They chose to restore two areas in the park totaling 33 acres. One area, located near the handicap-accessible dock, had been used for water-storage operations. The other was next to a former well pad in the western part of the park.
Bob Eriksen, a wildlife biologist with the turkey federation, said the locations were perfect for the type of project that Range proposed.
“This spot was ideal for us because it was an area that had been disturbed by the drilling operation and would probably have reverted into kind of a weedy field with some invasive vegetation that is not as attractive to wildlife,” Eriksen said. “Our objective and Range’s objective was to leave that site better than they found it orginally.”
Although the park is more white than green right now, spring will bring with it a colorful palette of purple coneflowers and yellow partridge peas – two varieties of flowers that Range planted in the wildlife habitats. A mix of clover species, a nurse crop of oats, lanceleaf coreopsis and black-eyed Susans also were planted.
The project got off to a start in spring 2014, at which time weeds and invasive plants were uprooted. The areas were then cleared, mowed and plowed. Now that everything is finished, the habitat requires little maintenance.
Avella High School students will help to enhance the habitat this spring by building and installing boxes for bluebirds. Evy Breitigan, high school science teacher, said students have done similar projects in the past at Cross Creek park. Every spring, students build duck boxes in their woodshop class and learn about the ducks’ habitat and nesting habits in science class. Through the project, students learned that the population of wood ducks in the area has gone up in recent years.
Breitigan said the ducks like to build their nests in a cavity and often lay their eggs inside the boxes.
“It almost looks like a woodpecker going into a hole,” she said. “The kids love checking on the duck boxes.”
Eriksen said Washington and Greene counties are a “stronghold” for wild turkeys, and both hunters and nature lovers can enjoy the habitat areas in the park. While some may consider the intermingling of conservation and hunting unusual, it’s part of the turkey federation’s mission. Eriksen said a large chunk of the conservation budgets at the state and federal levels are funded by hunting and angling, including the licenses and equipment purchases that go along with the sports.
It’s not all about the turkeys, though.
“Everything we do for wild turkeys benefits literally hundreds of other species,” Eriksen said.
Mackin credited the park staff, county commissioners and county planning commission for working cooperatively with Range on the project.
“We can show that energy development and habitat improvements can coexist,” he said.