WREN E-News November/December 2011

What may be the future of stream cleanup in the Chesapeake Bay is currently a wide swath of exposed dirt on a scenic West Lampeter Township farm in Lancaster County. A portion of the property is being restored to what it looked like 200 years ago. And some 26 scientists from 12 state and federal agencies, as well as academic institutions, are pinning high hopes on the Big Spring Run stream and wetlands restoration.

They hope it will become a role model for a new way to stop soil and fertilizer from being flushed down streams in several bay states. They advocated a new cleanup method for streams in the bay watershed: remove the layer of topsoil and allow the streams to get back to their historic course, one in which creeks were shallow and were surrounded by wetlands to absorb flooding.

Legacy sediment stream restoration has gained traction in recent years, but proving success has been difficult because there wasn't "before" data to measure against the "after" restoration results. Until now. Big Spring Run through the Rocky Knoll farm has been measured and studied for eight years. After the $1 million restoration project is finished, there will be a clear-cut way to determine if such ecosystem improvements did indeed result in less soil and nutrients coming through.

Read more about this New Stream Cleanup Model in this month's Feature article.

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WREN Grants Available Late December!

Dollar sign in green

WREN grants will be available for both Watershed Education and Source Water Protection Education projects in 2012. Look for the grant guidelines to be posted late December. Applications will be due March 23, 2012. Awarded projects will take place July 2012 - June 2013.

WREN Projects are Transferable

WREN Projects can be replicated or modified to suit your community's needs and circumstances. No need to reinvent the wheel! WREN exists to make it easier for you to do community education about water resources. Read about successful projects at http://wren.palwv.org/local.html.

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Panel on Climate Change Issues Extreme Weather Report

Climate change will make the drought and flooding events that have battered the United States and other countries in 2011 happen more often in years to come, forcing us to rethink the way we deal with disasters.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report was released in November. This report looks at how studying weather, dealing with disasters, and making changes can help us deal with events such as droughts and floods. The report explains how climate change has a hand in creating severe or unseasonal weather. Among the ways to better prepare ourselves are early-warning systems, new ideas for insurance coverage, and weather-proofing buildings and roads.

This report also includes examples that show specific weather related disasters in different parts of the world.

The report provides information on how often, how severe, how widespread, and how long some extreme weather events will last. Also, the report tells us how to prepare ourselves before and during weather events.

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Rooftops to Rivers Report

When it rains, it pours. Rainy days often turn waterways in many towns into a virtual "poop soup" when wastewater plants cannot keep up with the deluge of stormwater runoff that is added on top of the sewage load. But many cities are going green to catch rainwater where it falls, using green approaches that mimic Mother Nature with everything from green roofs to porous pavement for public parking areas. While each is a small step to divert the water from the sewer, together they add up and can truly make a difference.

The Natural Resources Defense Council put out a new Rooftops to Rivers Report in November. The report shows examples of fourteen cities that are using innovative green infrastructure techniques to mimic natural systems to stop water pollution. These cities found that green infrastructure is more cost effective than investing in conventional or "gray" infrastructure, such as pipes and underground storage systems. Better yet, each dollar invested in green infrastructure delivers benefits that conventional infrastructure cannot, including better flood resilience and, where needed, increased local water supply.

Check out Chapter 3 for the financial aspects of using green infrastructure featuring cost/benefit information. The results show green infrastructure is a less expensive way to manage polluted runoff, reduce combined sewer overflows (CSOs) and stormwater runoff than conventional infrastructure alternatives alone. Case studies for fourteen cities considered green infrastructure leaders are included. A six-point "Emerald City Scale" identifies the six key actions that cities and towns should take to become cleaner and greener. Philadelphia was ranked #1 (see article below), and Pittsburgh was included among the fourteen case studies.

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PAOneStop: Online System for Farm Mapping and Nutrient Management and Erosion & Sedimentation Planning

Penn State Cooperative Extension now has an online software tool called PAOneStop that allows farmers to map their fields and helps with compliance on nutrient management and nutrient balance sheet regulations. PAOneStop can assist agricultural producers with field mapping, nutrient management and Erosion and Sedimentation Planning. The site displays recent satellite photos to view practices that are being implemented on the farm. The PAOneStop program is free of charge and does not require users to add new software. After registering, users can map their operations and produce hardcopy maps necessary for regulatory compliance. The system has aerial maps, NRCS soil maps and tools to help determine setbacks and boundaries. Check out the PAOneStop Fact Sheet.

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Marcellus Shale Drilling May Take Huge Chunks Out of PA Forests

What does loss of forest mean for our streams? "Because forests absorb more nutrients and retain more sediment than other land uses, their loss could result in more of those pollutants reaching local streams."

According to the Bay Journal, during the next two decades, Pennsylvania could lose enough forest land to build a couple of large cities. The forest won't be lost in a single large chunk, but as thousands of small sites that are cleared to drill natural gas wells and connected with hundreds of miles of new pipelines. While those impacts will be scattered across the landscape, their cumulative impact on forest habitats could be severe, and could also complicate the state's efforts to meet its nutrient and sediment reduction obligations under the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load, or pollution diet.

Many landowners are not aware that existing state regulations (while requiring site stabilization and vegetative restoration) do NOT require full restoration of a forested site back to its pre-drilling state. Current regulations leave post-drilling site restoration to be negotiated between the landowner and the gas company. Some forward-thinking landowners have specified full restoration measures to encourage re-growth and ensure quality wildlife habitat with top soil replacement, mitigation of compacted soils, planting of native trees with deer browsing protection, removal of access roads, and invasive species controls. Without appropriate lease language however, many landowners may be left with hardened clearings and compacted soils that approach the density of concrete from heavy equipment use.

What does loss of forest cover mean for drinking water? A major water system in Pennsylvania modeled the level of pollutants for forested areas versus residential lawns. They found a striking difference in the levels of pollution that result when forested lands are lost and equated it to water quality degradation:

turbidity is twice as high from lawns than generated from forested lands;
nitrogen concentration in runoff from lawns is almost 5 times greater than that from forested lands, and 3 times greater for phosphorus;
pathogen concentrations like Cryptosporidium and Giardia in runoff from lawns is over 30 times greater than that from forested lands;
fecal coliform concentrations are 3,000 times greater.

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Forests to Faucets Project Introduced

Many people don't recognize the degree to which forests make cleaner water and healthier streams. The USDA Forest Service Forests to Faucets project helps to fill this gap using GIS to model and map U.S. land areas most important to surface drinking water, and the role forests play in protecting these areas. This work can serve as an education tool to illustrate the link between forests and the provision of surface drinking water - a key watershed-based ecosystem service. An interactive map is available on the Forest Service website.

Penn State Extension is offering a webinar on Thursday, December 15 on "Natural Gas Development's Impact on Forestlands." The webinar will run from 1:00 - 2:15pm. Click here to register.

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Philadelphia's Green City, Clean Waters Program Lifts City From Underdog to Champion

Like a tree sprouting green leaves from every branch, Philly has a vast network of sustainable businesses, buildings, and initiatives. Taking into account the number of green jobs, The Brookings Institute ranked Philadelphia as the 5th largest clean economy of the nation's 100 largest metros, even beating out San Francisco at #6.

According to Environmental Leader, the city's Green City, Clean Waters program is a key part of the Mayor's plan to be the #1 green city in America. The program is Philadelphia's 25-year plan to protect and enhance watersheds by managing storm water with innovative green infrastructure.

This approach will protect and enhance the region's waterways by managing storm water runoff to significantly reduce reliance on construction of additional underground infrastructure. In effect, investing in green storm water solutions reseeds what are currently impervious watershed hardscapes. Philadelphia also sees its "above ground" greening approach as a key quality of life investment that helps preserve the residential tax base and decreases crime.

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New Report Finds Power Plants Contributing to Water Stress

To Manage Risk, Power Plant Planners Must Consider Impact of Water Use

Power plants are stressing freshwater resources around the country, according to a new report by the Energy and Water in a Warming World Initiative, a three-year research collaboration between the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and a team of more than a dozen scientists. The report, "Freshwater Use by U.S. Power Plants: Electricity's Thirst for a Precious Resource," is the first systematic assessment of how power-plant cooling affects freshwater resources across the United States and of the quality of the data available on power plant water usage.

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You Know Where the Grapes in Your Wine are From, But Do You Know Where Your Drinking Water Comes From?

More than three-quarters of Americans don't know where their water comes from according to a Nature Conservancy poll, Talk about a disconnect between people and nature!

Excluding those who reported receiving well water:

Approximately 77% could not accurately identify the natural source of the water used in their homes.
Well over half immediately declined to hazard a guess.
Just 50% of those claiming to know the source of their water could correctly identify it.