News

February 3, 2010

Pa. among the top states in tackling waterway pollution

It’s No. 2 in waterway sections restored to health. Tennessee ranks first.

While water pollution is far from eliminated in Pennsylvania, the commonwealth is making significant strides forward, according to water quality regulators.

An Environmental Protection Agency list has the state as second nationally in the sections of waterways that have been restored to health, behind only Tennessee. With seven separate waterways on the list, Pennsylvania is tied with Wyoming.

Pennsylvania has 18 waterway sections on the list, stretching more than 69 miles. More than half of that mileage came from four streams added this year from northern and western Pennsylvania.

They “were once unable to support aquatic life or were severely degraded due to high acidity caused by mine drainage, high concentrations of metals, and silt from coal mines and coal waste piles that were abandoned” decades ago, according to a news release from the state Department of Environmental Protection.

The waterways were rehabilitated by constructing mine drainage treatment plants, reclaiming abandoned mine lands with vegetation and stabilizing stream banks. Changes were also made to how the streams are used, such as keeping livestock out of the water and building stormwater drainage projects.

Much of the funding for the work came through the state.

Signs of waterway cleanup extend beyond the state borders, as well. The Susquehanna River Basin Commission announced on Monday that nutrients, such as phosphorus and nitrogen, and sediments in the river have declined during the past 23 years.

The SRBC collected information since 1985 at six stations along the river and added another 17 – one of which is in Luzerne County – in 2004 and 2005. The data show that almost every monitored category has trended downward.

Rory Sweeney, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 970-7418.

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