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Volunteer Project-
WATER MONITORS NEEDED
Learn More About It!!
Nostalgia, Anyone? Did you grow up playing in the creek, or wishing you could? Well, it’s never too late. You can recapture the fun of those times while performing a valuable community service.
The Turtle Creek Watershed Association (TCWA), in conjunction with the Environmental Alliance for Senior Involvement (EASI – pronounced “E-Z”), is seeking adult volunteers for monthly water quality monitoring within the Turtle Creek watershed. Anyone 18 and over interested in learning how to gather basic water data on our streams is welcome to attend a few hours of training and to adopt a site to collect samples for routine testing.
Can I Do This? Water analysis procedures are simple and accurate. If you can follow a recipe, then you can easily collect data that will be used in the future to support and advance research and environmental development of the region. Goals include the restoration of our streams so that as original drinking water sources they are safe, and safe for fishing and recreational use - able to support a greater diversity of wildlife. The streams that we are targeting have been affected by acid mine drainage and excess stormwater runoff, as well as other forms of pollution affecting our region.
Volunteers’ work will amass consistent and scientifically defensible water quality data to be used as the basis for new strategies and projects to improve water quality in the watershed, reduce stormwater damage, create safe fishable streams, and bolster our local economy and competitiveness.
Monitoring will include tests to determine dissolved oxygen levels, turbidity, pH, acidity, alkalinity, and metal values. In the spring and fall, you will also perform a survey of the organisms living at your monitoring site. The presence or absence of these creatures is a wonderful indicator of stream health and function.
So What’s the Point? Why collect water quality data or go searching for stream bugs? What good is it to have years of data tucked away on the national EASI web site or in the Turtle Creek Watershed Association’s office?
Without taking water samples and getting a real “look” at water quality and stream health, we cannot make well-informed decisions about how to help a waterway. Water quality, at any particular point in a stream, has a natural fluctuation based on flow volume, velocity, and weather conditions (such as timing of the last rainfall).
The best reason to sample is to plan ahead. Showing trends in our waterways over seasons and years is important. Obtaining clear evidence demonstrating the consistency of a water condition provides necessary diagnostic information to comprehensively design effective projects.
A second reason to sample is money. Funding for stream restoration or abandoned mine drainage remediation projects is in short supply. Having accurate data upon which to design a good project greatly increases the chances to receive grants.
Another reason is change or damage. If conditions create a change in a particular stream (e.g. a recent disturbance, a new sewer overflow, or a completed restoration project), our existing data are invaluable as we compare it with all new data collected.
Your Site. Whether you have a favorite spot on the creek you would like to adopt, a favorite fishing hole, or are open to suggestion, we will be delighted to have you join our team of dedicated volunteers. All watershed stream sites are important, yet this EASI monitoring project has a few immediate goals. Coal mine contamination is one of our worst water quality issues. Remediation of our largest discharges will result in miles of clean water.
Our Mining Legacy. Abandoned mine drainage ( AMD), which can be acidic or alkaline, is a particularly problematic source of pollution for this area. In southwestern Pennsylvania, acid mine drainage refers to the outflow of low pH water from abandoned coal mines. (The pH scale goes from 0.0 to 14.0.) In many watershed localities, the liquid draining from old mines, coal stocks, coal handling facilities, coal washeries, and even coal waste tips can be highly acidic, with a pH from 2.5 to 3.8.
Historically, our sub-surface mining often progressed below the water table, so water was constantly pumped out of the mine in order to prevent flooding. When a mine was abandoned, pumping ceased, and water flooded its tunnels and rooms. Dissolving substances in the surrounding soil and rock, this water begins most acid drainage situations. Tailings piles or ponds may also be a source of acid drainage.
After being exposed to air and water, oxidation of metal sulfides (often pyrite, which is iron-sulfide) within the surrounding rock and overburden generate acidity. Colonies of bacteria and archaea greatly accelerate the decomposition of metal ions, although the reactions also occur in an abiotic environment. These microbes, called extremophiles for their ability to survive in harsh conditions, occur naturally in the rock, but limited water and oxygen supplies usually keep their numbers low. Special extremophiles known as acidophiles especially favor the low pH levels of abandoned mines. In particular, Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans is a key contributor to pyrite oxidation and sulfuric acid formation.
About half of the coal mine discharges in Pennsylvania have pH under 5 standard units. This is true of the majority of our watershed discharges. However, a significant portion of mine drainage in both the bituminous and anthracite regions of Pennsylvania is alkaline, because limestone in the overburden neutralizes acid before ir surfaces. This is true of our Irwin Mine discharge.
Beyond naturally occurring or introduced limestone, there are a number of ways to deal with this acid mine drainage. There can be reclamation of abandoned coal by-product piles, passive water treatment through specially designed wetlands, and many other options. However, no option will work effectively unless it is based upon an accurate understanding of the water chemistry. Your efforts to monitor water quality provide a foundation for engineers to design site-specific treatment systems that will produce the greatest water quality improvement.
Not All Business. While this is serious business, we know that being an EASI team member isn’t a chore. In fact, if you are committed to the training and monitoring, then be ready to have a little fun along the way. We gather water samples in teams of two to five people. So, if you and some friends want to sign on together, that’s great! Or, just bring yourself and meet some new friends. Each team will be given its own sampling site or sites, and typically the group chooses a regular meeting date – for example, the first Saturday of the month. Many sampling teams make the collection part of breakfast or lunch outing.
Almost all of the chemical tests and physical measurements are performed on site. Field recorded data are then entered into the national EASI database where it becomes available to the public on a national scale at www.easi.org/. Our teams will also have the option to meet every few months to review any interesting data that has been collected, troubleshoot any problems that might occur with testing equipment, and catch up with what TCWA is doing.
If you are interested in learning more about becoming an EASI volunteer, please call TCWA at Contact us by phone at 412-396-1550 or by e-mail at good.fish@live.com.
Informational meetings will be held at 7:00 p.m. at three locations –
on Tuesday, August 7 th at Murrysville’s Senior Center
on Wednesday, August 8 th at the North Huntingdon Township Building
on Monday, August 13 th at the Pitcairn-Monroeville Sportsmen’s Club
Training sessions will be held at 6:00 p.m. at the same locations –
on Thursday, September 6 th at Murrysville’s Senior Center
on Wednesday, September 5 th at the North Huntingdon Township Building
on Monday, September 10 th at the Pitcairn-Monroeville Sportsmen’s Club
We hope to see you and your friends on one of the these evenings!
Membership -
NEW MEMBER BENEFITS
Local Businesses Offer Discounts
Showing their support of TCWA's efforts to address water quality and quantity issues, local busniesses are offering TCWA members special discounts and provding monthly prizes.For more details, go to the Outreach and Membership sections of this website.
Overview of What We Do
People in southwestern Pennsylvania have been dealing with flooding, contaminated drinking water sources, mining legacies, sewerage problems, and other issues for generations. Since 1970, TCWA has been involved in remediating abandoned mine drainage contamination, preventing flooding, improving waste water treatment, educating the community about water quality and quantity issues, addressing stormwater problems, reducing erosion and subsequent sedimentation, and monitoring water quality across the watershed.
As time progressed, some of these issues have improved considerably, while others have worsened. In response, our activities and projects have changed to meet community demands. For the last few years, our efforts have been focused in the five areas noted on the left. A synopsis of each appears below, but please click on each topic link for more information.
Abandoned Mine Drainage (AMD) - active mining operations disturbed the ground water table, so water entered the mines. Pumping out this water or digging troughs to let it drain by gravity was required. As the mines played out, ground water collected in these abandoned mines. Geologically speaking, pyrite (fool's gold), made form iron and sulfur, formed at the same time as the coal, so this rock is found in mine tunnels. As it dissolves in the mine water, acid is formed, and iron ions float free. Aluminum oxides, naturally found in our soils, are pH sensitive - dissociating in the acid water. As a result, acid, iron, and aluminum are our three major contaminants today.
Community Education - water is a critical resource for drinking, bathing, household tasks, agriculture, industry, and many other uses. Normally we here in southwest Pennsylvania are fortunate to have an ample supply. None the less, issues associated with our water and the ways in which we deal with it are numerous and complex. Our education and outreach programs offer a look at the land, air, and water connections; new AMD treatment options; traditional vs. progressive stormwater management methods; new federal and state regulations; how water quality and quantity issues affect you (and your taxes); and how you can make a difference.
Multi-Municipal Cooperation - water does not recognize political boundaries even though our water planning approaches often try to impose those boundaries or to look at things on only an even smaller site-by-site basis. As development continues, the volume of initial stormwater runoff continues to increase - despite attempts to reduce it. As a result, more people than ever before are experiencing flooding, and the incidence of other stormwater-related problems is also on the rise. So are their costs, which all of us pay for. In addition, municipalities must comply with new federal and state regulations for non-point source pollution. There are expensive ways and cost-effective ways to meet these goals. By working together, all of our municipalities can save money and get better results.
Streambank Stabilization - One of the results of excess stormwater runoff is erosion - often very substantial erosion. Infrastructure is damaged and must be repaired or replaced. Yards are washed away. "I'm paying taxes on land that doesn't exist anymore!" is a complaint heard more and more frequently. Then eroded materials end up being deposited in stream channels where they displace water volume. When channels cannot hold as much water, yet more arrives with each rainstorm, flooding is the result. Our recent stabilization projects use the principles that keep natural streams healthy to restore damaged channels, protect them from further erosion, transport normal sediment loads, and reduce downstream deposition.
Water Quality Monitoring - Across the 147 square miles of the Turtle Creek watershed, 67 monitoring sites have been identified by the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). In the past, water testing at these sites has been linked to project-specific planning. Therefore, we have sporatic data on each site. Complicating the situation are DEP budget cuts which ended their ability to provide laboratory analysis of water samples. We now face two challenges - one, finding a way to obtain low cost sample analysis, and two, finding enough volunteer monitors.
Please click on the left-hand links to get more information about each topic.