About the Author

Wil Taylor is an active participant of the Slippery Rock Watershed Coalition and is currently the Park Manager at the Jennings Environmental Education Center.  Jennings is a resource-based state park located near the town of Slippery Rock, in Butler County that features the only protected and managed prairie in Pennsylvania, several endangered plants and animals and an abandoned mine that discharges severely degraded mine drainage which is being treated by a environmentally-friendly passive treatment system. Wil has developed and facilitated many educational and interpretive programs centered around the history of  the mine, the issue of abandoned mine drainage and passive treatment. These programs have included teacher workshops, agency trainings, college courses, middle school and high school programs and community events and presentations.   After teaching about coal mining and abandoned mine drainage for a number of years, Wil decided that it would be beneficial to the general public to write a book about history, cause, and solutions to abandoned mine drainage.  The book “Accepting the Challenged” was first published in 2001 by Stream Restoration Incorporated.