GREENPITTSBURGH

The National Sierra Club was founded in California in 1892. It has long been recognized as one of the nation’s most active and effective national groups working for environmental integrity through public education, lobbying, and legal action. The national membership was 625,000 in 2000. In recent years the Sierra Club has focused its environmental advocacy on clean air and water, open space and wild places, conservation of natural resources, wise use of land, and improved mass transportation.The Pennsylvania Chapter of the Sierra Club consists of ten Groups, of which the Allegheny Group is one. This group was organized in the early 1970sThe Allegheny Group’s first projects involved legal battles to oppose granting strip mining permits which threatened irreplaceable local water supplies. It also fought in and out of the courts to protect the Clarion River from pulp mill wastes. It also did a study of lands on the Allegheny National Forest that might qualify as Wilderness areas under the 1964 National Wilderness Act. It was instrumental in getting bills introduced in Congress to protect three areas as Wilderness, and succeeded in obtaining Wilderness status for the Hickory Creek area and a number of Allegheny River islands. The group also played a role in restricting the use of off-road vehicles on the Allegheny National Forest.Members may become involved in various conservation committees that work on such issues as air quality, population, carrying capacity, oil and gas, wetlands, recycling and political education.It currently has committees formed to face the following local agendas:

• Air Quality
• Environmental Justice
• Global Warming
• Hays Woods
• Mining
• Mon Fayette Expressway
• Public Lands
• Sustainable Agriculture/Urban Gardening
• Transportation
• Water

If you have any type of interest in any of the above issues or the many others (see list below) it might be time to tap into your local chapter to see how you can make a difference.

• Climate Change and Energy
• Coal
• Land Use
• Rivers and Water
• Sustainability
• Restorative Forestry
• True Cost of Food
• Wilderness
• Local Campaigns
• Recycling
• Nuclear Power

Here’s their link to make the next step to making a difference a whole lot easier!