Abandoned Mine Posts

by Andy McAllister, Watershed Coordinator

Acidity in our streams can come from a variety of sources; some natural and some not. The water in some streams, swamps and wetlands can be naturally acidic due in part, to the breakdown of plant material releasing Tannins or Tannic Acid. Tannins are responsible for the dark root beer-like appearance and slightly lower pH levels of some waterways.

However, very acidic conditions are most often the result of man’s influence on the environment. Two examples of this are Acid Mine Drainage (AMD) and Acid Rain.

Acid Mine Drainage forms principally from something called Iron Pyrite or “Fools Gold” that is associated with most coal deposits. Acid rain on the other hand, is caused by smoke from automobiles, manufacturing emissions, fossil fuel (oil, coal, and gas) combustion, forest fire smoke, and volcanic gases interacting with rain. When fossil fuels are burned they release sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. These substances, when not removed from the emissions, mix with water vapor in the atmosphere to form Sulfuric Acid and Nitric Acid. Generally, rain with a pH lower than 5.5 qualifies as Acid Rain.

Acid rain eventually flows into streams and lakes, and if those streams cannot buffer the increasing acidity with naturally occurring limestone, they become acidic. The acidity causes such toxins as aluminium and other metals to become dissolved in the stream water. Once dissolved in the water, these metals become poisonous to fish and birds. Acidity in also kills trees and slowly eats away at limestone buildings and stone statues.

The byproducts of combustion that contribute to our acid rain find their way to us from other areas of the country “downwind” of Pennsylvania. The clouds form due in part to our mountainous topography wringing out the water from the atmosphere. The moisture-laden air bumps into the ridgetops in Western and Central PA and forms clouds which then release their acid in the form of rainfall. As a result, the coal regions of Pennsylvania get a “double dose” of acid, both in the form of acid rain and in the form of AMD.

Acid rain has been a widely recognized environmental threat in Europe since the 1950s but has only been acknowledged to be an increasing problem in the US since the 1970s. Technological improvements in fossil fuel combusion for powerplants have resulted in significant reductions of Sulfur compounds over the years but similar success in reducing Nitrogen compounds has yet to be realized.

Acid Rain
from Environment Canada

by Vanessa Good (WPCAMR Intern) and Jeffrey Gerard (OSM/VISTA)

Brooks and branches, creeks and cricks: We use a plethora of terms to affectionately talk about the flowing water in our communities. But just what are we referring to?

In talking about watersheds, certain words have very precise meanings; for example, a tributary (also called a branch, a fork, or a prong) does not meet the sea, but always flows into another stream, river, or bay.

But other words that describe flowing water can be more ambiguous, often having only imprecise connotations; sometimes the dictionary notes these distinctions in usage. A channel, according to Merriam-Webster, is the narrow, deeper part of a riverbed where the water flows fastest. A strait is a channel that connects two large bodies of water. Waterways are usually (but not necessarily) navigable by boats. Brooks conjure images of being fed by bubbling springs. And a river is larger than a stream, which may in turn be larger than a creek—but exactly where the divisions are, no one can say. (The world’s shortest river, the D River in Oregon, is only 120 feet long.)

Some word choices are set apart not by nuances in meaning, but by their origins in regional dialect and history. Eastern Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey, with their heavy Dutch influence, have kills (e.g. Schuylkill, Bushkill), from the Dutch word kil meaning “river bed, channel.” A swath of the United States that stretches from about Pittsburgh to Virginia’s southern border—and west towards Kansas City—often uses the word run to name streams (e.g. Glade Run in Fayette County). Or across ‘the pond,’ you might find a beck, bourne, brook, or burn in the United Kingdom; only Southern England uses the word stream.

Perhaps the most interesting distinction is the pronunciation of creek versus crick. Rather than following geographical boundaries, the word creek is used widely by city folk throughout the nation, whereas crick is the pronunciation of choice in rural areas—though many people, city or country, alternate between both.

Humor writer Patrick McManus describes where to draw the line between a creek and a crick in his essay “How to Fish a Crick”:

“A creek has none of the raucous, vulgar, freewheeling character of a crick. … Creeks tend to be pristine. They meander regally through high mountain meadows, cascade down dainty waterfalls, pause in placid pools, ripple over beds of gleaming gravel and polished rock. … Cricks, on the other hand, shuffle through cow pastures, slog through beaver dams, gurgle through culverts, ooze through barnyards, sprawl under sagging bridges, and when not otherwise occupied, thrash fitfully on their beds of quicksand and clay.”

For more information…

• Definitions of Lakes, Rivers, Seas, Oceans, Bays, Streams, and More by Matt Rosenberg, About.com
• Take Our Word For It
• “Stream” on Wikipedia
• How to Fish a Crick by Patrick McManus

by Andy McAllister, WPCAMR Watershed Coordinator

Crustaceans make up a significant portion of animal communities in all aquatic habitats, from the most extreme ephemeral desert pools to the oceans and everywhere in between. Crustaceans are probably the most well known arthropods because of their contributions to aquatic and terrestrial food webs — not to mention their impact on the economics of the world.

Though arguably the most numerous animals in the marine environment, crustaceans haven’t been quite as successful over the millennia in freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems where they share their habitat with more successful arthropods (principally insects). Still, the diversity of crustacean life in freshwater is astounding.

Crayfish
courtesy Andrews University

As crustaceans feed, they grow, and as they grow they must shed their hard outer covering, called an exoskeleton, and produce a larger one; this process is called molting. Crustaceans molt as they grow throughout their lives, but they molt most frequently during a process called metamorphosis, as they change from larvae to adults.

Seed Shrimp
courtesy Iowa State University

In addition to the most commonly recognized freshwater crustaceans in our streams, crawfish and scuds, aquatic ecosystems are home to some more unusual crustaceans. Ostracods, commonly called seed shrimp, are among the smallest crustaceans. At about the size of a grain of sand, they are easily missed in a stream sample. An ostracod looks like a small clam, but it is actually a type of crustacean that makes this clam-like shell. Although they spend most of their time in the bottom scavenging for tiny particles of dead and rotting material, they can and do swim readily, propelling themselves around like a jet-ski.

All Crustaceans brood their young: as the eggs are laid, they are collected by the female and incubated under or on the outside of the mother’s hard shell. Once the young crustaceans hatch, they leave the mother and are off on their own.

Crustaceans, like many other stream invertebrates, are adversely affected by pollutants, including acid mine drainage (AMD). The hard shell of most crustaceans consists largely of calcium compounds, which are very susceptible to being dissolved by the acids in AMD. According to many reports, crustacean diversity begins to be negatively affected at stream pH levels less than 6.0.

by Andy McAllister, Watershed Coordinator

Limpets, pond snails, sheepnose, heelsplitters, pocketbooks, pistolgrips: the names are as numerous and diverse as the mollusks themselves. The scientific divisions within the Phylum Mollusca are numerous as well.

In Pennsylvania, the most common mollusks are Gastropods (snails) and Bivalves (clams and mussels). The mussel fauna of the family Unionidae in particular, can be found in portions of the Ohio and Susquehanna River drainage basins in Western PA. Freshwater gastropods (snails and limpets), on the other hand, are found practically everywhere.

The feeding habits of the two types of mollusk vary as well. Clams and mussels burrow in the stream bottom and position themselves to pull in water through tubes called siphons and filter out food particles, whereas most snails scrape algae off of rocks and logs with a sort of rasping tongue.

As sedentary filter feeders, clams and mussels are particularly susceptible to being smothered by sedimentation. Mussel populations in Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and other areas of the country with a historically rich mollusk fauna, have declined significantly due to sedimentation from mining sites, such as coal fines and AMD precipitate.

Acidity from mine drainage is another factor that can affect mollusks in a stream. Low pH from acid mine drainage has been shown to reduce the viability of glochidia, the tiny larval forms of mollusks, which in turn, affects the re-population rate (also known as recruitment).

Not only do our native mollusks have to contend with various types of pollution in their habitat, but recently they’ve also had to compete with invaders from other waters. Zebra mussels and Asiatic clams are two mollusks that have invaded the freshwater of the United States. Asiatic clams are small, round clams that compete with native fingernail clams for food and available habitat. The rapidly reproducing Zebra mussel has become the bane of water intake structures throughout the Ohio River and Mississippi River basins, clogging these structures as they attach by the thousands in search of a good spot to filter out their food. Zebra mussels are so abundant and so efficient at filtering food particles from water, that in some areas, they leave water crystal clear with almost no food particles left for the native mussels.