A draft of Pennsylvania’s latest public report on the health of its water sources finds that 33 percent of the state’s approximate 85,500 miles of rivers and streams are impaired.

By a count of the Department of Environmental Protection, 27,886 stream miles are impaired — or, below a specific standard — for any of these four uses: aquatic life, recreation, fish consumption, potable water.

The count rose 3 percent, or 2,418 miles, compared to 2020. That’s due in large part to the addition or reassessment of a combined 11,000 miles of rivers and streams. Dustin Shull, environmental group manager with DEP’s Bureau of Clean Water, cited “new tools and better science.”

“The water quality might have been at that (impaired) level always, we just have better tools to see it now,” Shull said.

DEP produces the reports every two years as part of the federal Clean Water Act.

The environmental staff routinely monitor rivers and streams, lakes, bays and wetlands, according to Tom Decker, community relations coordinator in DEP’s Meadville office. They determine if the study area is impaired or attained — that is, meeting water quality standards.

“Surveys used to make these determinations are based on information gathered by aquatic biologists that include water chemistry, aquatic macroinvertebrate data and fishery data,” Decker said in an email.

Lancaster County has the most miles of impaired streams at 1,286.

Philadelphia accounts for the highest percentage, 96.9 percent.

Impairments are relative. If a body of water is impaired for fish consumption, it may be better safe than sorry, though there is guidance, Shull said, for certain sizes and species of fish. As for recreation, jumping into an impaired body doesn’t necessarily mean an illness will occur.

“All we’re saying is that the risk is beyond what we’re comfortable with, that this is an unacceptable level of contamination and we need to do work to fix it,” Shull said.

At 72.4 percent and 688 miles impaired, Northumberland County ranked fifth in percentage of streams impaired. Montour followed at 13th with 178 miles impaired, 64.5 percent; Snyder, 17th, 403 miles, 50 percent; Union, 24th, 285 miles, 46.7 percent; Cambria, 34th, 404 miles, 29.7 percent; Lawrence, 40th, 163 miles, 24.5 percent; Crawford, 53rd, 417 miles, 15.9 percent; Mercer, 59th, 198 miles, 14.4 percent.

Department personnel have assessed about 99 percent of the state’s streams and rivers, according to the draft 2022 Integrated Water Quality Report now available online at www.dep.pa.gov. There is a link to the report at the website’s “newsroom.”

Public comment on the report opened Jan. 15 and remains open through March 1. Visit www.ahs.dep.pa.gov/eComment/ to submit comments and view comments submitted by others.

Wendy Kedzierski, Creek Connections project director at Allegheny College, said that she hadn’t seen anything surprising in her first look at the report but was still happy to see DEP tracking such issues.

“I think it’s always good to see people are paying attention to our area,” Kedzierski said.

Aquatic life impairments

Some water bodies are assigned different assessments, or none at all, across different categories.

The risk to aquatic life is greatest in Pennsylvania’s water sources.

Nearly 18,000 miles of rivers and streams are impaired in that category, according to the report. Agricultural sediment and acid-mine drainage are primarily to blame.

The impaired waterways include Dick Run in Meadville, which flows into Mill Run under Walgreens at the corner of Liberty and North streets. Mill Run then flows into French Creek less than a mile to the southwest. French Creek was rated was considered attained for aquatic life.

“Dick Run was surveyed,” Decker said, “and data from the survey indicated that Dick Run is impaired and in need of pollution reduction plans to restore the waterway.”

Kedzierski, who also serves as president of the board that oversees French Creek Valley Conservancy, said the impaired status for Dick Run didn’t come as a surprise.

The tiny stream stretches nearly a mile from Limber Road just east of Highland Avenue to where it meets Mill Run under Walgreens at the corner of Liberty and North streets, and spends much of that distance underground as the result of development.

On the campus of Allegheny College, it flows into an underground pipe to travel beneath the Ravine-Narvik residence hall parking lot and emerges as a creek again soon after passing beyond the lot. Dick Run goes back underground at Stewart Lane, just before passing under the Meadville Medical Center parking lot on Randolph Street.

Aquatic life is, by far, the category most widely assessed. More than 83,000 river and stream miles were studied for aquatic life. Of that, 79 percent attain that protected use.

Assessments of Pennsylvania’s public lakes totaled nearly 110,000 acres, or about 97 percent of public acreage. About 61 percent, or nearly 69,000 acres, are considered impaired. The far majority of impairments are in aquatic life and fish consumption with recreation a very distant third and potability hardly registering.

It’s not easily discernible as to the change in impaired acres of lakes from DEP’s previous report in 2020.

As with streams, unknown sources of contaminants account for a major portion of what’s polluted Pennsylvania lakes. and as with streams, agriculture is a leading known source with respect to aquatic life impairments, with nutrients and acidic water as causes. That’s followed closely by urban runoff, waterfowl and other wildlife. Mercury levels cause impairment of fish consumption.

The 2022 version is DEP’s 15th edition of the Integrated Water Quality Report. Data can be cumulative and as noted prior, reassessments are had.

Andy Yencha works in water resources education with the Penn State Extension. The storyboard format and data-rich resources linked within the Integrated Water Quality Report go a long way in educating municipal leaders, he said.

Yencha called pollution sources more “chronic than acute,” nothing how point-source pollution — say, an outdated sewage facility — has received a lot of attention over the years. Non-point-source pollution like urban and agricultural runoff continues to present problems, however.

“When a rainstorm comes and a stream is polluted with a discharge or sediment, those fish have to move. They may not necessarily be eliminated,” Yencha said. “The critters in the stream have adapted, that’s my perspective.”

Success stories

According to the report, almost 935 miles of streams and rivers reverted from attaining to impaired for varied reasons. Conversely, 120 miles improved from impaired to attaining. All told, 1,365 miles changed designation or remained within the same designation but saw its source of pollution change, for example.

For lakes, 40,440 acres across 46 lakes saw some change from the 2020 report but largely because specific uses like water supply or fish consumption hadn’t been assessed previously.

Stretching across all of Pennsylvania, DEP says about 920 miles of streams and 28,000 acres of lakes have been restored since 2004. The sediment-impaired Turtle Creek in Union County is heralded as a success story within the 2022 Integrated Water Quality Report.

Middle Creek near Selinsgrove in Snyder County and parts of Penns Creek in Union County saw impairments lifted on fish consumption. Meadville’s Cemetery Run in Crawford County and Lake Arthur in Butler County were restored for aquatic life.

“New information based on additional surveys indicated that this stream is attaining its aquatic life use,” Decker said.

How’s that happened? It depends on the pollution source. Education and collaboration with land and property owners work, particularly in the agricultural community. That includes firming upstream banks on private properties, encouraging the installation of fencing and gates to keep livestock from meandering into streams. Implementing best management practices for nutrients and fertilizers, planting trees and cover crops and shifting to no-till farming.

Benjamin Mummert, director of Land Protection and Stewardship with the Central Pennsylvania Conservancy, agreed with Yencha’s assessment of shifted focus to non-point-source pollutants.

“The big growing source of pollutants is developed sources,” Mummert said. “We’re not just talking parking lots, we’re talking about lawns.”

Lawns aren’t much more permeable than asphalt, Mummert said. Water can run off and carry away fertilizer and silt with it.

That’s where efforts like turf conversion — replacing turf grass with drought-resistant native plants and other landscape materials — along with turf-to-trees and green infrastructure like wells for street trees to collect runoff can help.

The successes in the DEP report show that some farmers are doing their part to help improve the environment. Mummert and others like him have their sights set elsewhere.

“It concerns me that urbanization is the fastest-growing source of water pollution,” Mummert said.

 
 

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