Wild plant sanctuary to be dedicated today
Janet Sredy and husband Raul Chiesa walk through a field of black-eyed Susans and Queen Anne’s lace. Their land will be recognized as one of four wild plant sanctuaries in Southwestern Pennsylvania.
A variety of flowers including black-eyed Susans and trillium grow on the plant sanctuary’s grounds.
Janet Sredy and husband Raul Chiesa worked to bring life back to 110 acres in Forward Township. The land will be recognized as one of four wild plant sanctuaries in Southwestern Pennsylvania.
Janet Sredy and Raul Chiesa are planting new trees throughout their 110-acre property. The couple said they often bring picnic lunches to enjoy the scenery.
Admitted nature and tree lovers Raul Chiesa, and his wife, Janet Sredy, take their zeal much further than most. Since obtaining full control of a 110-acre tract of land in Forward Township that was in the Sredy family since 1920, they worked tirelessly to restore the property that was farmed until 1948.
Following the Donora smog disaster that year, the family halted further agriculture endeavors, and the property fell into disuse.
Since then, the tract suffered additional degradation through air pollution from nearby steel mills, natural gas exploitation, soil erosion, vandalism, dumping, pipeline construction and trespassing by ATV and dirt bike riders.
The couple’s restoration efforts on the tract, located within the 500-acre Beckets Run Woodlands Biodiversity Area, earned them certification from American Tree Farm System in 2010.
In 2015, they also earned the title “National Outstanding Tree Farmer of the Year” from the ATFS.
The couple is one of only 40 out of approximately 82,000 eligible tree farmers in the nation to receive the award since the ATFS first began presenting it in 1970. They are only the second in Pennsylvania to earn the award.
At 11 a.m. Tuesday, another of the couple’s ecological efforts will be recognized at the site when state and local officials meet to dedicate the property as a wild plant sanctuary. According to Jason Ryndock, ecological information specialist of the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, the site will become only the fourth wild plant sanctuary in Southwestern Pennsylvania.
The others are Duff Park, located near Murrysville in Westmoreland County, a private tract in Washington County and another private tract in Westmoreland County. Since the sanctuary designation program actively began in 2009, only 16 tracts have received the designation across the state.
Despite the past degradation of the Beckets Run Woodlands sanctuary, the biodiversity area is home to a rare species of trillium, Trillium nivale, or snow trillium, which grows in habitats with the proper soil conditions and steep slopes similar to that found at Beckets Run Woodlands.
The colony of snow trillium, located on an adjacent property within the Beckets Run Biodiversity Area, numbered 32 in 2012. Despite its rare quality, the sensitive colony and its ecosystem had been threatened by trespassers and ATV riders. Once, someone even drove a stolen truck through the tract, requiring its removal by a bulldozer, which caused even more alarm for the well-being of the plants.
To protect the colony, Sredy and Chiesa worked out a 100-year agreement with the landowner to lease the three acres where the rare plants are found.
Previously, they worked with the Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences at California University of Pennsylvania to help restore the Beckets Run Woodlands. Now they are working with Dr. Robert Whyte, head of the department, to find the optimal habitat on the wild plant preserve to translocate the snow trillium.
“Translocation involves replanting a particular species within the same biodiversity area as opposed to transplanting, which moves plants in from areas outside the biodiversity area,” Chiesa said. “With the rise of gas pipeline installations in this part of the state, it’s important to have a translocation plan.”
From the colony that has now grown to about 80 snow trillium, Whyte also is attempting to propagate three seeds at the university as an alternative method to insure the viability of the plants in the future.
“The best way to conserve these plants is to preserve them where they are,” Chiesa said. “But it’s also a good idea to develop a plan to move them and propagate them from seed.
Besides the snow trillium, another rare plant, the white trout lily (Erythronium albidum), was sighted in the Beckets Run Biodiversity Area in 2012, although none has been identified since. The couple intends to keep an eye out for the plant and to work on plans to move it to the preserve, if possible.
They also are involved with Jose Taracido, manager of the Fish and Wildlife Program at Cal U., to implement practices to improve wildlife habitat for pollinators, song birds and game animals. “We intend to continue to cooperate with the university in both the research and educational aspects of the sanctuary,” Chiesa said.
According to a DCNR newsletter, the Wild Plant Sanctuary Program was established through the Wild Resource Conservation Act of 1982 to establish a voluntary statewide network of native plant sanctuaries.
Landowners agree to protect the area and educate others about the importance of native and wild plants and habitats. In return, they receive any needed assistance with developing a management plan and have access to technical assistance and ecological checkups.
“For my parents, this tract of land was a financial liability, but we hope to make it a self-sustaining enterprise by issuing hunting permits, harvesting timber in a sustainable manner, providing recreations usage and implementing an educational component,” Sredy said.