Pennsylvanians spend about as much recreation time in the state's waterways as they did two years ago, despite an increase in agricultural toxins trickling into the rivers.
In 2020, nearly 30% of the state's waterways were considered "impaired." Now, more waterways are in some way damaged, according to a biennial water quality report released Thursday by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
The increase hasn't gone unnoticed. This year, more than $3.5 million will be funneled into 14 watershed restoration and protection projects in Philadelphia suburbs and throughout southeast Pennsylvania, where waterway impairment from farm runoff is most severe, a DEP statement said on Friday. The funding is to be included in the state's Growing Greener grants.
Agricultural runoff — nutrients from manure and chemical fertilizers — pollute many farmland tributaries feeding the long Pennsylvania segments of the Susquehanna and Delaware rivers, which flow into Chesapeake Bay. In an effort to restore recreational and commercial fishing values in the bay, several East Coast states including Pennsylvania are required to submit detailed reports of waterway pollution benchmarks every two years. The reports are a requirement of the Federal Clean Water Act.
In 2020, DEP's Integrated Water Quality Report found that nearly one-third of the state's rivers, streams and lakes met criteria that fit the department's definition of "impaired." The 2022 Pennsylvania report noted that with 11,000 additional miles of waterways assessed and 120 stream miles restored since the last report, there has been a 9% increase, or an additional 2,418 miles, of impaired waterways.
Dustin Shull of DEP's division of water quality said that with hands-on assessment of new waterways since 2020, the department now has hard data on 99% of the state's 85,000 miles of streams and rivers. The 2022 report includes 11,000 miles of newly researched waters, as well as 120 miles that have been restored and removed from the impaired list since 2020.
"A lot of work has been done in the last two years. So it's a mixed bag," he said. "As we reach the 100% assessment goal, it allows us to create a new understanding of recreational use."
In the language of conservation legislation, "impaired" doesn't mean orange water that smells like rotten eggs, a fair description of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers in the 1960s and 1970s. The DEP is looking for types and levels of impairment that reduce a waterway's recreational value. For instance, many species of freshwater fish can live in waters with siltation or biological impairments that discourage swimming, boating and other forms of recreation, other than fishing.
Mr. Shull said waterways can be corrupted in different ways. The report describes how the causes of impairment can impact the ways the water is used.
"There are different kinds of impairment, so they're not all equally contaminated," he said. "We look at the impairment source and the impairment cause."
If the source of impairment is agriculture, Mr. Shull said, the cause could be nutrient runoff, crop-related siltation, removal of a riparian foliage zone, or another way that farming can affect streams.
"The cause is what is really the issue," he said. "If siltation is covering the streambed and not allowing aquatic life to occur, that is the cause."
While the biggest water-quality problems occur in the southeastern corner of the state, Mr. Shull said the DEP has assessed about one-third of southwestern Pennsylvania's 5,000 miles of waterways. Sections with impairments were found on Raccoon Creek, a 47-mile stream that winds through Beaver and Washington counties. Despite the name given to Raccoon Creek State Park, Raccoon Creek barely touches one corner and does not flow into Raccoon Lake.
Draining miles of farmland once used for coal mining and forestry, Raccoon Creek is not suitable for trout stocking. But local anglers routinely report catches of catfish, yellow perch and panfish, and smallmouth bass are caught at the creek's mouth on the Ohio River.
"Portions of the stream are impaired," Mr. Shull said. "The middle watershed was found to be impaired for recreation with sediment in an earlier assessment. The lower watershed was reassessed and is now found to be impaired with pathogens, bacteria in the water."
As DEP's assessments chart some of Pennsylvania's most needy waterways, an ongoing water quality assessment project by the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission seeks evidence of the state's cleanest waters. Initiated in 2009, during the shale-gas drilling boom, the agency's Unassessed Waters Initiative has been creating a water-quality database on previously untested streams prior to industrial and development intrusions. The data is compared to assessments made after the use of water and riparian lands to detect negative impacts.
"The DEP water quality assessment is not associated with the Fish and Boat program," said Dave Nihart, Fish and Boat cold-water unit leader. "We may be in some of the same waters, but our assessments are looking for different things."
In addition to documenting pH levels, alkalinity, conductivity, dissolved oxygen and water temperature, Fish and Boat and project associates explore each new waterway with portable electro-fishing devices searching for reproducing populations of brook trout. Pennsylvania's state fish cannot reproduce in anything less than the clearest, cleanest waters. Discovery of native trout equals the discovery of water of the highest quality, triggering multi-agency processes that can protect entire watersheds.
Mr. Nihart said that in most cases, the DEP assessment program doesn't impact fish management decisions. But in October, 2021, when DEP found sufficient impairment to declare a fish consumption advisory on Neshaminy Creek in Bucks County, Mr. Nihart, architect of Fish and Boat's trout stocking program, removed the waterway from the spring 2022 stocking schedule.
Pennsylvania is also failing in another assessment tool designed to help Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia keep their promises regarding the health of Chesapeake Bay. The Clean Water Blueprint, an agreement among states that supply water to the bay, spells out steps they must take and funding deadlines required to achieve those goals.
Among the nonprofit environmental groups advocating and lobbying for bay water quality, one of the most persistent and influential groups is the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
In response to the DEP report, Shannon Gority, executive director of the foundation's Pennsylvania branch, said the increase in the miles of impaired waters listed in the report indicates that not enough is being done to clean and protect Pennsylvania's rivers and streams.
"That the latest report includes over 2,400 more miles of impaired rivers and streams than in 2020 is a sad reminder that Pennsylvania must accelerate its rate of installing practices that reduce pollution to local waters," she said, in a statement.
"It is time for our Commonwealth to accelerate implementation of its Clean Water Blueprint by providing the funds necessary to do more than plan. State and federal leaders need to follow-through on pending legislation that supports the many boots on the ground, landowners and communities working hard every day to protect and restore local rivers and streams. They want to do more."
