http://pariveroftheyear.org/ Pennsylvania Organization for Watersheds & Rivers (POWR) 2017 PA River of the Year nominees are listed above, including the winner, Allegheny River.

As the Conewango Creek feeds the Allegheny River, the Conewango Creek Watershed Association will feed information about the River of the Year title to the entities supporting the Allegheny.

The creek was Pennsylvania’s River of the Year in 2015.

The river holds the title for 2017.

Wes Ramsey, executive director of Penn Soil RC&D, which nominated the river, works in the same building as the CCWA.

Association members have been helping Ramsey with his preparations for the Allegheny’s year-long celebration. The series of events will be partially funded by the $10,000 Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Leadership Grant awarded to the winning river.

The association’s budget more than doubled in 2015.

“This was a big project for us,” Board Member Liz Dropp said. “It was a good learning experience.”

When the Conewango won, association members were not initially aware that there was a dollar-for-dollar match requirement. Dropp said that came as a surprise after creek had been named the winner.

Thanks to his relationship with the CCWA, that kind of detail will not catch Ramsey by surprise.

For the Conewango, it turned out that the match was not a problem. The association raised more than $9,000 in registration fees, sponsorships, memberships, sales, and donations. Being allowed to claim volunteer hours at the state rate of $15 per hour put the association far over the mark.

Even with some people failing to properly document their volunteer time, the association logged 2,163 hours for an in-kind value of $32,445. “It’s shocking to see how much volunteer time goes into something like this,” Dropp said. “We had some really dedicated board members and organizers or this wouldn’t have happened.”

The association’s expenditures included about $3,500 for facility rentals, another $3,500 for printing, about $1,100 for insurance and emergency medical services, about $1,800 for supplies and safety equipment, $880 for both advertising and postage, $780 for signs and banners, and $370 for transportation.

Some expenditures — food, entertainment, promotional items — cannot be funded by the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Leadership Grant.

Ramsey is already familiar with those restrictions, and that the grant funding may be disbursed in three payments, with the last waiting until the agency’s final financial report is lodged with DCNR.

The River of the Year celebration must include at least four events, one of which must be an on-the-water sojourn.

Penn Soil is one entity based in Warren County. The winning nomination of the Allegheny included the upper and middle reaches of the river — from Potter County through Venango County. Ramsey has said he has several partners working with him already, including the CCWA, and he hopes to find more.