With 20 years of professional experience in the world of natural conservation and a lifetime of love for the outdoors, Deborah Nardone became executive director of ClearWater Conservancy in August. Her previous work had been with local, state, and national organizations, including Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Allegheny Ridge Heritage Area, Pennsylvania Council of Trout Unlimited, and the Sierra Club.
“With the Sierra Club, I was working mostly at the federal level on energy policy, but I was also working in a handful of states on state regulations and some local communities,” she says. “I worked everywhere from Alaska to Florida. I really enjoyed that work. It gave me a whole new set of skills. But I also really missed working in my local community.”
Now that she has returned to the Centre County area, her job is as versatile as ever. ClearWater Conservancy specializes in promoting conservation within the community as well as restoration of natural resources across Pennsylvania — with clean water as a priority.
“In our surface area, a whole lot of streams are meeting what’s called ‘nondesignated use.’ They’re supposed to be meeting a certain water-quality level, and they’re not,” she says. “So, we’re trying to find ways to improve water quality and protect it once it’s improved. Part of the way we do that is by restoring streams.”
She believes the issue of water quality within Centre County and the surrounding areas is of high importance because it directly impacts the quality of life in the region.
“We think of State College as this wonderful place to live, to raise your child, to go to school. It’s got a great economy and low crime rates. A lot of that comes from having a healthy economy, but you also can’t have a healthy community unless you have good water quality. Good water quality is the foundation of any healthy community,” she said.
Since ClearWater Conservancy is a nonprofit organization, the restoration of streams and other natural elements is funded through donations from the community as well as fundraisers such as For the Love of Art and Chocolate, which is their largest fundraiser of the year.
“It helps fund our connections program, which is what we utilize for sending a whole ton of kids to Millbrook Marsh,” says Nardone, who lives in Halfmoon Township with her husband and 8-year-old son. “We send over a thousand students a year to Millbrook Marsh through this one fundraiser.”
While much of her professional life has dealt with natural conservancy, her love for the great outdoors has always run thick in her blood.
“I grew up where the streams were orange because of acid-mine drainage and the mountains around me were coal banks. I played in what essentially looked like a wasteland growing up,” she says. “Then I went to Juniata College for my undergrad, and I was environmental science through all of undergrad, mostly because I was appalled of the conditions I lived in. That’s when I saw how important it was to protect the places that are of good quality.”
