All of the materials you will need to apply for the Office of Surface Mining Watershed Internship program are available on this website: an application, a sample agreement, and some brief descriptions of the intern positions in 2006.

Watershed organizations in the following states are eligible to participate: Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. All Undergraduate and/or Graduate Students, throughout the United States, interested in helping to clean up the environment are encouraged to apply.

Each proposed watershed project must clearly enhance the sustainability of the watershed group; and must contribute directly to the fight against Acid Mine Drainage, the largest environmental challenge in the Appalachian coal fields. Projects could include, but are not limited to: watershed monitoring, watershed planning, grant writing, educational program development, community organization, and conceptual design for passive acid mine drainage remediation systems.

Each internship carries a $2,000 stipend for 12 weeks of full-time work by the intern and $500 for related expenses. Given the overall success of this program, the Office of Surface Mining has had to look to ways to expand the number of available intern positions. In addition to developing partnerships with other federal agencies, we ask that the sponsoring organizations partner with us. Therefore, the Office of Surface Mining will provide the full amount of $2,500 to first time sponsoring organizations. For those organizations that have been awarded and sponsored interns in the past, the Office of Surface Mining will provide half of the total ($1,250) and we ask that the sponsor match these funds by providing the remaining half of the funds ($1,250). Please indicate your ability to provide matching funds in the space provided (question #15) on the sponsor application. Note: Given that the first criteria for selection of an internship is the overall project, the sponsors ability to provide a match may or may not affect the award. In past years some organizations split the award with two younger interns with good results while others worked part-time over 24 weeks. We encourage innovative approaches to the Summer Watershed Internship Program and watershed efforts to address environmental challenges in coalfield areas.

Candidates must be able to organize their work, work well with community groups, and on their own, quickly internalize the requirements of acid mine drainage remediation and the national Clean Streams program, write well and enjoy public presentations.

We encourage each watershed to do its own recruiting for interns, but we also keep active files of very good candidates. Housing will often be an issue and it must be resolved within the guidelines set forth, but we have found "outside" interns are often the new faces that bring new energy and new perspective to watershed work.

Please consider the possibility that a full-time position for 12 weeks could bring to your watershed group and what an experience it will be for an intern. We hope to award more than 20 positions in 2006.

Please apply early! Sponsorships and Internships will be awarded on a rolling basis until all positions are allocated.

Academic credit for internships can usually be arranged!