PENN TWP — About 50 students from Butler Intermediate High School got their feet wet this morning at Thorn Creek, when they became the latest group to participate in a nearly-decade-long stream rehabilitation project.

The project is coordinated by science teacher Dave Andrews, who teaches seventh- and eighth-graders and leads a months-long project where students hatch and raise brook trout in the classroom before releasing them into the creek. XTO Energy also partners with the district as part of its emphasis on STEM (science, technology engineering and math) education.

This year students released 71 juvenile brook trout into the creek, which was polluted in 2004 when a building fire in Saxonburg and the emergency response to it created a “major pollution event” that heavily damaged the ecosystem of the waterway, said Ryan Harr, a watershed specialist with Butler County Conservation District.

“It basically killed everything in the stream,” Harr said.

Today Thorn Creek has fully recovered from the damage, Harr said, but as part of the legacy of rehabilitation Andrews' program continues to bring students to the waterway, where they perform tests on the water, release trout and observe a lineup of other biological demonstrations.