The Lycoming County Farm Project – 4th Year Update of Water Quality Monitoring

Elaine Langone Center, Terrace Room

In August 2011, a long term project started to monitor the water quality of three sites along an unnamed tributary to White Deer Hole Creek (Lycoming County). This project involved the cooperation of 4 farms (3 Amish), the Lycoming County Conservation District, the Lycoming County Planning Commission, and Lycoming College Clean Water Institute. After one year of preliminary water quality monitoring, the Lycoming County Conservation District worked with farms to implement best management practices (BMPs), consisting of riparian buffer construction, manure management, and no-till farming. Clean Water Institute interns began a pre and post evaluation along three sections of the tributary (upstream middle and downstream of project), collecting monthly chemical and physical data. Yearly sampling included macroinvertebrate and fish (electrofishing) density and diversity. Data loggers documenting flow have been used to calculate nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment loads. Data will be presented that document some improvement to nutrient and sediment loads, as well as an effect on the biota present. Specific evidence pointing to this observation includes the reappearance of brown trout at two of the sites.