Why "RAIN" Matters
We are excited to announce our partnership with the River Alert Information Network!
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Downtown Pittsburgh, viewed from the bank of the Allegheny River
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A part of one of RAIN's early warning monitoring systems
What is the value of our rivers? Well, for more than two million people who rely on the Cheat, Tygart, West Fork, Youghiogheny, Monongahela, Allegheny, Beaver, Shenango, and Ohio Rivers for their water supply, that answer is pretty simple—protect the rivers, protect our communities. And that, in a nutshell, is the purpose of the River Alert Information Network, or “RAIN.”
Ron Bargiel, current Chair of RAIN, and Water Quality Manager for Pennsylvania American Water, notes that all of the people living in this region, whether knowingly or not, “count on water professionals to ensure the safety and quality of the water in the upper Ohio River Basin.” It’s the same water that, once treated, comes streaming out of their faucets. RAIN’s mission is to protect this source water by collaborating with a network of 51 participating water suppliers and alerting them to threats before pollutants move downstream. Not only does this more effectively ensure the safety of residents and ecosystems in our region, but prevention offers more cost savings than responding to a contamination event.
When Peoples first connected with RAIN, their mission instantly resonated with us. We are dedicated to safely delivering natural gas to our customers and protecting our natural resources throughout that process, and RAIN’s commitment to safeguarding our water supply feeds into that goal.
With this in mind, we are excited to announce our partnership with the River Alert Information Network. In 2017, Peoples will be supporting RAIN with a $5,000 grant to produce a new piece of the Carnegie Science Center’s H2O! exhibit. RAIN’s display will show real-time water quality data, educating nearly half a million visitors per year on the importance of protecting our water supplies.
In addition to connecting with the public, RAIN also hopes to increase their number of early warning monitoring sites throughout the upper Ohio River Basin. These systems monitor water quality in near real-time, send electronic updates to RAIN headquarters, and alert water authorities of threats. So far, RAIN has established 23 monitoring sites, which collect data and then securely transfer that data to the Cloud.
To promote the growth of these early warning systems, Peoples has also committed to a $15,000 matching grant for the River Alert Information Network. For every dollar donated to RAIN, we will match it up to $15,000. So far, RAIN has raised $5,600 towards this campaign, so we still have a long way to go! We hope that this effort will help RAIN to bring new data-reporting sites online in order to significantly increase RAIN’s monitoring capabilities.
In our eyes, RAIN is more than just watershed protection. It is an organization committed to public health and environmental accountability, just like Peoples. We are passionate about reducing our own carbon footprint, but we want to take our environmental commitment beyond the safe transportation of natural gas. By supporting RAIN and other similar organizations, we hope to further protect our communities and environment.
To learn more about the River Alert Information Network, or to donate to the cause, please visit their website.