Photo: Gerald S. Williams
Section 3. Managing Watershed Stresses
OVERVIEW
Stresses on the Schuylkill watershed come from many kinds of land and water
uses, and even natural events such as droughts and floods. How we manage those
stresses will determine the extent to which the watershed will serve the needs
of present and future generations.
One way to look at watershed stresses is through water use and quality standards. Under the federal Clean Water Act and Pennsylvania statutes, all Pennsylvania waters have been classified for certain uses. Based upon water quality monitoring data, the PA DEP makes periodic watershed assessments that determine if water quality is sufficient to allow such uses. When found insufficient, those assessments attempt to identify the sources of impairment.
PA DEP has classified approximately 24 percent of the Schuylkill watershed as high quality or exceptional waters, and 48 and 24 percent that should be protected for cold and warm-water fisheries, respectively. Those protected use designations provide the basis for water quality standards in the watershed.
As of 1999, based upon an assessment of 53 percent of the watershed, DEP found that approximately 25 percent of assessed waters were impaired, i.e., they failed to meet their designated water quality standards. Why is that so? A variety of stresses are impacting the entire watershed and, for certain river sections and tributaries, their severity is causing problems. The following indicators provide a broad picture of the major types of stresses in the watershed, as well as some of the actions being taken to manage them.
- About 37 percent of the watershed is in agricultural uses. In the absence of good management practices, agriculture can be a serous threat to water quality. Based upon limited assessments in predominant agricultural areas, approximately 10 percent of the watershed’s impaired waters are currently attributed to agricultural operations.
- Impervious surfaces and urban storm water present significant threats, particularly in sub-watersheds experiencing suburban development. As of 2000, only 19 percent of the watershed’s municipalities had storm water management plans that were completed or underway.
- About 82 sewage treatment plants are discharging effluent into the river and its tributaries. All but one provides secondary or higher levels of treatment. Poorly sited and malfunctioning septic systems are also a threat to water quality, but insufficient data are available to assess their impact. Although nearly all watershed municipalities have Act 537 Sewage Facilities Plans, over half are more than ten years old. Untreated sewage is also illegally entering the river and its tributaries, although many municipalities are actively working to correct this problem.
- The watershed has more than 3,000 potential point sources of chemical pollutants that could be released into the watershed’s surface or groundwaters. Approximately 400 of those sources are hazardous waste sites, of which 22 are designated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as “Superfund” clean-up sites.
- Approximately 103 miles of assessed streams in the upper watershed are impaired by acidic abandoned mine drainage. Both public and nonprofit efforts are beginning to make progress in dealing with this problem through reclamation and new treatment technologies.
Ongoing monitoring is essential to understanding how well we are doing in managing watershed stresses. Public agencies and nonprofit organizations maintain a number of monitoring programs, but monitoring data are not always readily available in a form meaningful to the general public. Research activities are also important to understanding watershed stresses and identifying those techniques that are most effective in dealing with them.
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