Lehigh Valley Watershed Conference at Lehigh University

The ninth Lehigh Valley Watershed

Conference will be held 7:45 a.m. to 4 p.m. March 14 at Lehigh University’s STEPS Building, 1 W. Packer Ave., Bethlehem.

This year’s conference theme is Endemic Watershed Connections: Place, Preservation & Restoration. The conference will feature four tracks, with four sessions each, with 16 sessions to choose from. Unique to this year’s conference is a track titled Indigenous Perspectives, which includes sessions on issues Indian peoples and their communities face today, Indigenous ceremonial landscapes, a Native American art presentation, and a roundtable conversation with Delaware Nation citizens from Oklahoma and the Choctaw filmmaker who documented their experiences in the Delaware River watershed in 2016.

There will also be a full day MS-4 track for municipal staff and consultants charged with implementing stormwater regulations. Continuing education credits will be available for engineers and landscaping professionals. Other conference sessions will focus on a do-it-yourself real-time stream monitoring program, volunteer resources for community watershed organizations, the Clean Water Act and state water quality regulations, historic and current relationships between precipitation and flooding in the Lehigh Valley, opportunities and challenges of managed retreat and community based relocation in response to climate change, and more.

In keeping with this year’s conference theme and Indigenous perspectives, the keynote speaker will be Dr. Julia King, Professor of Anthropology at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. Dr. King will address St. Mary’s partnership initiative with the Rappahannock Tribe to identify and prioritize lands for conservation, preservation and acquisition in the Chesapeake Bay region.

Cost is $65, which includes conference sessions, sponsorship exhibits, breakfast, lunch and snack breaks. Lehigh University students with college ID may attend free of charge; other college students with ID will be charged $30. All students must register before the conference and include their college affiliation in their registration.

The Ninth Lehigh Valley Watershed Conference is organized by Lehigh University Environmental Initiative, Penn State Extension, Northampton County Parks & Recreation, Lehigh University Institute for Indigenous Studies, Nurture Nature Center, Northampton County Conservation District, and the Watershed Coalition of the Lehigh Valley. To view the conference schedule or to register online, go to www.eventbrite.com/e/lehigh-valley-watershed-conference-2023-registration-479970152647. For information about the conference, contact watershedcoalitionlv@gmail.com.