SRBC Water Quality Monitoring Report Again Shows No Adverse Impact From Drilling On State Forest, Other Land In Priority Watersheds

Another in a series of reports on water quality done based on results from the Susquehanna River Basin Commission’s Remote Water Quality Monitoring Network shows again streams in watersheds affected by natural gas drilling on State Forest and other land show no adverse impact from drilling operations.

The report, released on September 18, covers 16 watersheds in Cameron, Clearfield, Clinton, Lycoming, Potter and Tioga counties.  Many of the watersheds are either High Quality or Exceptional Value streams.

Eleven of these stations are located in watersheds on State Forest lands and 5 others either drain significant portions of State Forest lands or are heavily drilled watersheds that flow into and through State Forest lands and are of interest to DCNR.

SRBC’s Remote Water Quality Monitoring Network began continuously measuring and reporting water quality conditions in small streams that could potentially be impacted by the natural gas industry in January 2010.

Earlier reports have also found no adverse water quality conditions related to natural gas drilling.

Specifically, the report covers water sampling results on several different parameters-- specific conductivity, turbidity, stream temperature, stream chemistry (20 parameters), aquatic life and more.

Some of the key results include--

-- Specific Conductivity: Overall, the 16 stations exhibit low specific conductivity (higher levels would be bad); only three stations had concentrations greater than 100 and those were explained by other permitted dischargers on the stream not related to drilling, a close-by reservoir or road salt from I-80 (page 3);

-- Turbidity: Generally, turbidity concentrations are low across the sites (higher levels would be bad) and all but two sites have averages of less than 10 NTU and those were explained by the streams’ geomorphology and not related to drilling (page 4);

-- Stream Temperature: The majority of the stations on State Forest land of interest are in highly forested watersheds with ample canopy cover. Average stream temperatures were cool and were not significantly different from each other (page 5).

-- Stream Chemistry: Of the 20 parameters currently being sampled, only three failed to meet water quality standards or levels of concern, on average. Fourteen stations had naturally low alkalinity below the water quality standard.  Again, there were other local circumstances that caused the failure to meet the water quality standard (page 6).

-- Aquatic Life: Of the stations of interest to DCNR, most are in largely forested watersheds and support excellent biological communities. A majority of sites (13 of 16) are located on stream segments that are designated by DEP as Exceptional Value or High Quality and therefore have robust aquatic life (page 8).

Click Here for a copy of the report.  Visit SRBC’s Remote Monitoring Network webpage to learn more about the sampling done and for past reports.

For more information on programs, training opportunities and upcoming events, visit the Susquehanna River Basin Commission website.  Click Here to sign up for SRBC’s newsletter.   Follow SRBC on Twitter, visit them on YouTube.

Related Articles:

Susquehanna River Basin Commission Water Monitoring Again Finds No Impacts From Natural Gas Drilling [October 2017]

DCNR Releases 2nd Monitoring Report On State Forest Shale Gas Drilling [July 2018]