With 20 years of experience in the field of natural conservation with local, state, and national organizations, Deborah Nardone was named executive director of ClearWater Conservancy in September 2015. Since her arrival, she has been an integral part of the organization’s mission for land preservation and conservation in Centre County.
In 2016, ClearWater embarked on a project to conserve the Meyer Dairy and Everhart Farms and was awarded a $100,000 Centre Inspires Grant by Centre Foundation to initiate 2017 Centred Outdoors Challenge, a family-friendly fitness challenge to promote exploration at eight Centre County destinations, including Mount Nittany, The Arboretum at Penn State, Spring Creek Canyon Trail, Millbrook Marsh Nature Center, the Barrens to Bald Eagle Wildlife Corridor/Scotia Game Lands, Black Moshannon and Bald Eagle state parks, the Penns Creek Canyon Corridor, and Talleyrand Park.
ClearWater also will partner with Mount Nittany Health System and Centre Moves to launch the Prescription PaRx program, where physicians will write prescriptions for time outdoors at the eight destinations.
Born and raised in Wilkes Barre, Nardone earned bachelor’s degrees in environmental science and political science from Juniata College and a master’s degree in environmental pollution control from Penn State. Right after college, she founded the Juniata Clean Water Partnership, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting the Juniata watershed. She has worked for local, state, and national organizations, including the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the Allegheny Ridge Heritage Area, Pennsylvania Council of Trout Unlimited, and the Sierra Club.
She lives in Port Matilda with her husband, Jason Little, and their son, Jonah, 9.
Town&Gown founder Mimi Barash Coppersmith sat down with Nardone at Harrison’s Wine Grill in State College to discuss the projects that ClearWater Conservancy has planned for 2017 and how the community can help preserve the natural beauty of this area.
Mimi: You come from my home territory of Wilkes Barre. I’m interested in why you chose Juniata College?
Deborah: I fell in love with it the moment I stepped foot on the campus.
Mimi: Did you look at Penn State?
Deborah: I did look at Penn State. As a matter of fact, my parents were driving me to Juniata College on Route 26, which went down College Avenue at that time. As we were driving down College Avenue, my mom saw the Allen Street Grill and saw the campus and said, “Are you sure you don’t want to go here?” My mom fell in love with Penn State. I was a good student, but I wasn’t a great student. I was on the Juniata College campus for maybe five minutes and noticed every professor knew every student walking down the sidewalk, and the students greeted one another by name. It was very familial and small.
Mimi: But you came to Penn State for your advanced degree and you got stuck here.
Deborah: I did, and my mom was very happy. I fell in love with Central Pennsylvania instantly, which is another reason why I chose Juniata. Beautiful forested ridges, really healthy water quality, opportunities to go fishing, hiking, and biking. Growing up in coal country, like you did, my mountains were culm banks (mounds of waste coal), sparse with white birch trees, and the streams were orange. So moving someplace like this was so drop-dead gorgeous!
Mimi: Now you’re really on the brink of some historic stuff happening at ClearWater. Explain the grant that you received from Centre Foundation.
Deborah: The grant through Centre Foundation, through its Centre Inspires Grant Program, is to fund an innovative project called Centred Outdoors and Prescription PaRx. It’s an opportunity for us to get people outside and fall in love with their own backyard through having physicians write scripts for spending time outside and getting schoolchildren out through family fitness challenges. We know that spending time outside is good for mental health and wellness. We also know it’s good for the family unit and for conservation. We want people to hike up to the top of Mount Nittany or hike along the Spring Creek Canyon and realize there are beautiful places in our own backyard worth conserving. ClearWater and all of our partners will make it so we can guide people outside on adventures throughout all of 2017.
Mimi: How are you going to manage all the details that go along with executing this? Is there a place where people can go to sign up?
Deborah: There will be. We’re in the process of developing a main information page called CentredOutdoors.org. We are in partnership with a lot of other nonprofits in the region, including Mount Nittany Health System, Mount Nittany Conservancy, Penns Valley Conservation Association, and Penn State Sustainability Institute, as one core working team putting together the destinations we’ll visit and helping us host all of these outings. ClearWater also has a program called Adventures in Conservation where once a month we take our members on experiential learning trips. Sometimes these trips sell out within an hour on our Web site. We’ve found that people want to explore but they’re not quite comfortable doing it on their own sometimes. For a family of four to pick up and explore the Spring Creek Canyon, it might not be as comfortable as it would be if there was a naturalist or a historian who will guide and walk with them along the Spring Creek Canyon and tell them about it. Then they might come back and visit again and again.
Mimi: Perhaps the hardest thing is your recent announcement about the Meyer and Everhart farms. How did you pull that one off?
Deborah: ClearWater Conservancy is focused on identifying and protecting what makes people love this place we call Home. We just celebrated 36 years of history, which have been pretty incredible. The next 35 years puts us at 2051. When I start asking people in the community what they want this place to look like in 2051, what makes you love this place and stay here, it’s always the farmland, beautiful landscapes, forested ridges, trout-filled waters — and we know that’s what people desire, yet we’re in a community that’s growing. It’s becoming a city. ClearWater’s proactive strategy is looking at ways we can conserve the places we love most, protect the water and air quality so we can have a healthy environment while this place grows. Over the last couple years, we’ve had discussions with the State College Borough Water Authority about how we protect our drinking water and protecting some of the lands in closest proximity to their wellheads. Their wellheads are where they pull the drinking water for the town, essentially. They’ve identified a handful of properties that were most important to protect. They’re right outside of the growth boundary. We talked to a number of landowners, including the Meyer family and the Everhart family, and know that they wanted conservation to remain one of their most important priorities. The Meyer family wants to farm. They want to keep the dairy going. They’re an icon in this community. I mean who doesn’t love to go to Meyer Dairy and get milk in glass bottles and ice cream? And yes, the opportunity of someone offering them millions of dollars for their property is very possible — so this was a win-win for us and the community. We are paying them to put the conservation easement on their property. They retain ownership and have the ability then to continue farming. Joe Meyer, he’s 93, in his back office said to me, “We’ve had a lot of people approach us about our land over the years, but we think this is a solution the community can stand behind.” So they’re committed to keeping the dairy there.
Mimi: Who will they pass the dairy onto? Does he have children?
Deborah: He does. Joe and his son, Denny, manage the Meyer Dairy Partnership. They manage that property together and decided that conservation is their priority. So we’ll be putting conservation easements on large parcels of the land at Meyer Dairy, but not all of it. We will be purchasing the Everhart Farm, putting a conservation easement on it, which reduces the value of the land since it removes the rights for development. The Meyer Diary Partnership will then purchase the Everhart Farm.
Mimi: That is a win-win!
Deborah: Yes. And they can retire and do whatever they plan to do.
Mimi: And who led the negotiation?
Deborah: ClearWater’s wonderful staff, board and I have led the discussions with the families and municipalities. The State College Borough Water Authority has been a huge partner, as well.
Mimi: That’s one of the very unique parts of the greater State College area — the capacity for government, private society, concerned and caring organizations, and the university — it’s a team of people who care not just for their own special interests but also for the long-term interest of the area.
Deborah: That is why I wanted to work at ClearWater Conservancy. My board and our community are filled with people who love this place and are forward-thinking enough to figure out how to grow smartly. It’s not fighting over land-use decisions that have already been made. It’s about making sure a farmer can still be a farmer, making sure the water sources are protected, and that the community retains ownership of the most beautiful landscapes in this entire valley. If you’re standing on the steps of the [State College] Friends School and you’re looking out at that gorgeous landscape, that’s the land we’re trying to protect.
Mimi: Gorgeous is the word. There are many others that will give it a run for its money, particularly as you go out farther. I’m sitting here fascinated by the memory of when I interviewed Jennifer Shuey for the job you now have. It tickles my warm bone that two smart women, somewhat understated women, have been keys to what has happened at ClearWater Conservancy. Do you think that’s part of our DNA?
Deborah: I think women have this remarkable ability to be kind and gracious, to go at any approach with clarity, focus, ease, and grace. We’re about finding solutions, and that’s really at the heart of what ClearWater is about. It’s about convening community conversations and finding proactive solutions. Jen left some really huge shoes at ClearWater. I actually had the honor of working with Jen in the late 1990s. I was working in Huntingdon, establishing a group called the Juniata Clean Water Partnership doing river conservation on the Juniata River while Jen was doing work here conserving Spring Creek. I’ve always had such remarkable respect for her work and approach. She left ClearWater so much better than she found it.
Mimi: She established its historic path in her quiet, persistent fashion. Now she’s transferred that to the Arts Festival and First Night. She really is having a remarkable impact on their growth.
Deborah: She also helped develop and build an endowment at ClearWater Conservancy.
Mimi: How big is your endowment?
Deborah: It’s about $3.5 million, so it’s enough for us to fund at least one full-time person. As a land trust, we’re required to be here forever. We have conservation easements on 17 pieces of land. We are required by the IRS to monitor and review those properties every single year, so there’s a really big requirement as a land trust to make sure we’re here in perpetuity, just like our conservation easements will be here in perpetuity.
Mimi: When you think of ClearWater Conservancy you have to think of Don Hamer.
Deborah: Absolutely. Don is such an important person to ClearWater’s history. He and Jen Shuey were instrumental to thinking about nontraditional approaches to conservation. He was adamant that we have many different sectors to our board. Don and Jen, their love of the environment here and their ability to create conversations with the community really set the stage for where we are now and the organization we are today. Don, before his passing, left a gift to ClearWater Conservancy for strategic land conservation. I mentioned the 50/50 split that we’re looking at for the Everhart/Meyer project. A big part of the community portion that’s coming was given by the Hamer Foundation. So even though he’s not here with us, he’s with us forever by funding strategic land conservation and by leaving dollars that help fund our endowment. The Spring Creek Canyon is another example of Don’s legacy. Every place you visit in this region has probably been touched by Don in some way.
Mimi: That’s a nice way to end this interview because he had a lifetime interest in preservation and conservation. While you’ve got a big job ahead of you, I personally want to urge everyone reading this to dig in a little.
Deborah: You can find us at clearwaterconservancy.org and all the details will be there.
Mimi: Thank you for joining me and continued good luck and progress in doing what is partly God’s work, really. Thank you for all you do!
Deborah: Thank you!
