Assessing PA’s Lake Erie Tributaries Nate Irwin PA DEP- Office of the Great Lakes 18 April 2016

Waters of the Commonwealth All waterbodies: lakes, streams, rivers, springs, wetlands… Water body assessments are a requirement of the federal Clean Water Act Pennsylvania has established protected uses: Aquatic Life Water Supply Recreation / Fish Consumption While there are many

Lake Erie Tributary Streams Lake Erie tributaries are scheduled to be assessed again in 2016 for both aquatic life and recreation (based on E. coli bacteria, see Ch. 93) Last assessment was 2004 (mostly Doug Ebert w/ ECDH) Most impairments are in urbanized streams. Impairments are caused by stormwater and siltation. Results get reported to EPA

Stream Assessments What are Stream Assessments? A grading of the health of the stream Instream Comprehensive Evaluation (ICE) Physical Chemical Biological

Physical Habitat evaluation of the site Is the diversity of Is there a diversity of habitat types that will benefit a diversity of species? Is the diversity of organisms limited by the “number of homes in the neighborhood”?

Chemical Field chemistry via water quality meter A total of 8 grab samples will be collected per site 29 tests will be performed at the lab One time check of water purity Limitation is that it is one moment in time

Biological An assessment of the organisms that call the waterbody home. May include macroinvertebrates (bottom dwelling “bugs”), fish, algae, plants, and/or bacteria. Priority is given to macroinvertebrates Dep.wv.gov

Why Macroinvertebrates Easy to catch/collect Good indicators or water quality Well studied Individual pollution tolerance values Quick to rebound “Easy” to identify

What’s done with Macro’s A total of 6 samples will be collected and combined at each site via d-net. Samples sent to Harrisburg for identification Standard biological metrics will be carried on the data Ultimate goal is to determine whether sites are “attaining” or “non-attaining” of their protected aquatic life use.

Recreational Assessment Recreational Use assessments being led by Central Office Planning is still underway Based on E. coli samples Timeframe is June-Sept. Each site will be sampled on 5 consecutive samples within a 30 day period. Hundreds of samples will be collected. Geometric mean is defined as the nth root of the product of n numbers. √(𝑛&𝑋1 • 𝑋2 • 𝑋3 • 𝑋4 •…𝑋𝑛)

Contact: Nate Irwin Office of the Great Lakes nirwin@pa.gov