Preliminary Survey for Lycoming County Conservational District’s Wolf Run Restoration Project
Start Date
10-11-2017 8:00 PM
End Date
10-11-2017 10:00 PM
Description
The Lycoming County Conservational District is preparing to start restoration projects at 4 sites along Wolf Run in Muncy, PA. The restoration projects are needed because of the historical use of agriculture, limited or absent riparian buffers in the agricultural areas, conservation farming practices are limited, and there is a high rate of bank erosion. In 2013, the DEP completed a TDML (Total Maximum Daily Load) for the Wolf Run Watershed. In this document, the DEP recommended putting in: stream bank stabilizations, riparian buffers, heavy use area protection, and manure storage. The project designed is going to stabilize 2,880 feet of stream bank and will prevent high amounts of nutrients and sediments from entering the Wolf Run Watershed. Clean Water Institute Interns were tasked with completing a survey prior to the start of the restoration projects. This survey included, water chemistry, coliform sampling, fisheries survey, and macroinvertebrate samples were taken. The fisheries survey was only completed at the most upstream site. With the water chemistry data, we found that pH goes in a steady decline when going downstream, Alkalinity increases going downstream, and Orthophosphate and Phosphorous both decrease going downstream. The fisheries survey showed that there were 9 species of fish present, and that the largest fish was 15cm in length. An Index of Biological Integrity showed that none of the sites are impaired biologically, however the sites are very close to being impaired. The Lycoming County Conservational District is planning to finish this project in the fall of 2018.
Keywords
Wolf Run, Clean Water Institute, stream restoration
Type
Poster
Session
Poster session
Language
eng
Preliminary Survey for Lycoming County Conservational District’s Wolf Run Restoration Project
Elaine Langone Center, Terrace Room
The Lycoming County Conservational District is preparing to start restoration projects at 4 sites along Wolf Run in Muncy, PA. The restoration projects are needed because of the historical use of agriculture, limited or absent riparian buffers in the agricultural areas, conservation farming practices are limited, and there is a high rate of bank erosion. In 2013, the DEP completed a TDML (Total Maximum Daily Load) for the Wolf Run Watershed. In this document, the DEP recommended putting in: stream bank stabilizations, riparian buffers, heavy use area protection, and manure storage. The project designed is going to stabilize 2,880 feet of stream bank and will prevent high amounts of nutrients and sediments from entering the Wolf Run Watershed. Clean Water Institute Interns were tasked with completing a survey prior to the start of the restoration projects. This survey included, water chemistry, coliform sampling, fisheries survey, and macroinvertebrate samples were taken. The fisheries survey was only completed at the most upstream site. With the water chemistry data, we found that pH goes in a steady decline when going downstream, Alkalinity increases going downstream, and Orthophosphate and Phosphorous both decrease going downstream. The fisheries survey showed that there were 9 species of fish present, and that the largest fish was 15cm in length. An Index of Biological Integrity showed that none of the sites are impaired biologically, however the sites are very close to being impaired. The Lycoming County Conservational District is planning to finish this project in the fall of 2018.