The Susquehanna River Basin Commission Thursday announced 18 separate water withdrawals approved by SRBC in 6 Pennsylvania counties remain temporarily suspended due to localized lower stream flow levels.
The withdrawals on hold are in Blair (1), Bradford (10), Lycoming (1), Potter (1), Tioga (4) and Wyoming (1) counties.
Streams have responded positively to recent rainfall events, reducing the number of suspended water withdrawals by more than half this week. The vast majority of the temporarily suspended withdrawals are related to water for natural gas projects.
The suspended withdrawals are part of SRBC’s passby flow requirement to protect aquatic resources and downstream water users. When streams drop below pre-determined protective flow levels, project sponsors who are required to meet SRBC’s passby requirement must stop taking water. They cannot resume taking water until streams have recovered above the protected level for at least 48 hours.
SRBC and its regulated project sponsors monitor real-time stream flow data generated by stream gages maintained and operated by the U.S. Geological Survey. Regulated project sponsors also are required to install tamper-proof water meters that automatically record their water withdrawals on a daily basis.
SRBC requires that information be reported quarterly, in addition to continuous spot-inspections conducted by SRBC field staff working out of the field office in Sayre, Bradford County, Pennsylvania.
For more information, visit the SRBC Natural Gas Shales webpage.
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