Protecting the Chesapeake Bay starts in small streams in Pennsylvania.
“Restoring the water quality and habitat of Turtle Creek while maintaining the watershed and a working agricultural landscape was no small undertaking," said Jessica Shirley, Pennsylvania’s Acting Secretary for the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). "It yielded incredible results with cleaner water and better habitat within the watershed."
Just over 2.2 miles of tributaries of Turtle Creek are no longer considered impaired. Representatives from the state and Northcentral Pennsylvania celebrated that milestone at the seventh-generation Griffin Farm in Union County.
The Northcentral Stream Partnership is responsible for the restoration. The group is made up of state and local representatives, including the Northcentral Pennsylvania Conservancy, the Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission and DEP. They work with farmers and property owners across 14 counties to improve the water quality and aquatic habitats in local waterways. Those partnerships were also celebrated Thursday. A big part of the group’s work is maintaining the working agricultural landscape.
Some of Turtle Creek's tributaries are now officially “delisted” from the EPA’s impaired waters list.
"I'm guessing for most of us, it is the only time you want to be delisted right?” said Russell Redding, Pa.’s secretary of agriculture.
Many of the state’s waterways are polluted from stormwater, agriculture or the state’s coal mining past. The group restored about a quarter mile of Turtle Creek itself so far. It cost around $60,000 through grants and other funding sources. Turtle Creek runs through farms and into the Susquehanna River which flows into the Chesapeake Bay.
State Sen. Gene Yaw is the chair of the Pennsylvania Delegation to the Chesapeake Bay Commission. He said 50% of the fresh water that goes into the bay is from Pennsylvania.
His colleague, state Sen. Scott Martin, who serves parts of Berks and Lancaster counties, said they are committed to this issue.
"We have a commitment to future generations of Pennsylvanians and other people in the watershed ... these things are going to be ongoing," he said. "Our work is nowhere near complete.”
There are 83,000 farms in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed and hundreds of thousands of creeks, said Joel Dunn, president of Chesapeake Conservancy.
“This is this is a really big deal," he said. "And it marks a turn a big turning point for the Chesapeake Bay Conservation movement.”
Rebecca Dunlap is the aquatic biologist supervisor for DEP’s Northcentral Regional office. She and a colleague demonstrated how bugs like mayflies and stoneflies are collected from the bottoms of streams. They determine the health of the water.
"This is what makes the biologist heart smile," she said. "There's real work happening. And we can see a response in the environment.”
