River Hero-T. Allan Comp

The National River Heroes Award celebrates rivers and those who protect them by recognizing some of our victories and honoring those who provide us with leadership and inspiration along the way.

At our 2009 National River Rally in Baltimore last month, we were delighted to recognize Dr. T. Allan Comp - Founder and Coordinator of the Appalachian Coal Country Watershed Team (ACCWT) and the Western Hardrock Watershed Team (WHWT) - as one of our 2009 River Heroes.

Jo Hanson, the pioneering public artist in San Francisco, once described Allan Comp as "a relaxed blend of John Muir, John Dewey and John the Baptist."

Allan brings a multidisciplinary approach to the problems wrought by pre-regulatory coal mining in Appalachia, a region stretching from northeastern Pennsylvania to central Alabama. In 1994, Comp - with a Ph.D. in history, experience working for the National Park Service, and a job with the Southwestern Pennsylvania Heritage Preservation Commission - founded a nonprofit called AMD&ART. Acid mine drainage (AMD) - the metals-laden water, often acidic, that coats stream beds with orange sediment, killing the bottom of the food chain - is a painful reminder of the poverty and economic abandonment that still exists in coal country.

Allan's organization, AMD&ART, brought together artists, scientists, historians and community members to transform land degraded by coal mining and acid mine drainage into a 35-acre arts-centered public park that included AMD treatment and new wetlands - artfully transforming an environmental liability into a community asset.

Once finished, Allan joined the U.S. Department of the Interior to turn his attention to transforming more of the Appalachian coal country. In 2001 he launched the Appalachian Coal Country Watershed Team, partnering his Interior Office of Surface Mining with VISTA and community watershed groups to fight poverty and empower rural communities to create healthier places to live, one watershed at a time.

In six years, his Appalachian Coal Country Watershed Team is now 55 full-time VISTA volunteers and thousands of part-time community volunteers. Watershed Teams in eight states have raised almost $8 million and donated an astonishing 115,935 hours of community service.

For his remarkable energy and good spirit in building partnerships with and for communities in regions devoid of significant funding sources or even spare time, T. Allan Comp is truly a National River Hero.

To learn more about our other River Heroes, current and past, please follow this link: www.rivernetwork.org/past-heroes-compton-winners