Turtle Creek Watershed Restoration, Union County-- Everyone Does A Little, So No One Has To Do It All

A partnership led by the Northcentral Pennsylvania Conservancy and state agencies, county conservation districts, nonprofit organizations, and willing landowners have joined forces to tackle the challenge of bringing Turtle Creek Watershed in Union County back to health while maintaining a working agricultural landscape.

They’ve focused a sustained investment on this waterway as part of a larger effort within Pennsylvania’s Northcentral region.

DEP developed an online storymap to tell the story of the partnership’s restoration efforts so what they've learned can help others improve their local waterways too.

It’s also a story about the power of partnerships, innovation, environmental stewardship of landowners, and the resiliency of natural systems.

It’s a success story suggesting broader opportunities for Pennsylvania’s waters, and for the Chesapeake Bay.

Background

The Turtle Creek watershed was settled in the 1800s as a farming community, and continues to be a largely agricultural landscape today. Many trees were cut down as 47% of the watershed’s land was converted to farms and fields.

The addition of livestock to the landscape, combined with the elimination of nature's vegetated buffers and filters, have significantly changed the health and structure of Turtle Creek.  

The goal of the Turtle Creek partnership is to restore the water quality and habitat of Turtle Creek, while maintaining the watershed as a working agricultural and forested landscape.

Turtle Creek is under a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL), which is one type of plan to clean up an impaired waterway. DEP relies on help from many local partners and landowners to implement these plans and clean up the water.

There are several challenges facing Turtle Creek.

Sediment has been the primary focus of restoration efforts, because it is the cause of Turtle Creek's impairment. Excess sediment decreases water quality. Unstable stream banks are eroding, or falling into the stream, for a number of reasons.

All of these issues have been going on for decades and will not be solved overnight.

Click Here to learn what the partnership did to help restore the Turtle Creek Watershed.

NewsClip:

DEP Creates Detailed Storymap Of Turtle Creek Watershed Restoration