Managing the watersheds in the ANF takes data. Without this data ANF Hydrologist Chuck Keeports would not be able to make informed decisions on where and how to spend time, money, and resources to improve the watersheds of the ANF. Collecting this data also takes time and resources. Fortunately, several organizations come together to form a partnership to gather resources and volunteers to put boots on the ground in the ANF to gather water samples and take stream measurements of things like water PH and conductivity. The three main organizations that form this partnership are the U.S. Forest Service, Trout Unlimited, and Penn State University. Other organizations involved include the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, the Elk, Warren, and McKean County Conservation Districts, Pitt Bradford University, Clarion University, and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
On a typical snapshot day anywhere from 60 to 85 individual sites are sampled. This is many road miles traveled, and many foot miles traveled as some sampling sites are remote and require a hike into the forest. According to Jake Lemon, the Eastern Angler Science Coordinator for Trout Unlimited, dozens of volunteers have donated over 500 hours of time to this effort. He stated that without the efforts of these volunteers and without the partnerships that have been formed the vast amount of sampling that has occurred could not happen.
The goals of the water quality monitoring are to gather baseline data throughout the ANF, determine if waters are meeting the PA DEP water quality standards, monitoring the impacts of current management activities, and monitoring the negative impacts of the legacy issues from past oil and gas development. It is very important to stay on top of the oil and gas legacy issues within the ANF. Aging infrastructure and poor drilling, completion, and plugging practices are a huge problem within the ANF.
In future posts I will discuss my day volunteering for the snapshot day as well as looking at the current data collected and what that data is telling us. I hope you stop back and look for updates.
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