Acid Mine Drainage Recovery?

[Sylvaneous]

Does anyone know of an AMD stream that was brought back to be a really good trout stream? Except the Lackawanna. That river is exceptional.

Syl

 

[troutbert]

I know of several streams that previously had no trout that now have good brookie fishing.

Also, some stretches of the West Branch Susquehanna were formerly dead, and now have good smallmouth fishing.

 

[dryflyguy]

Maybe the clarion would fit your criteria
It was pretty badly polluted back in the day. Although I believe a lot of that was caused by the paper plant in Johnsonburg.
But the east branch - and some of it's tribs - had AMD problems, that have been remediated

 

[troutbert]

AMD streams are not all the same. The water chemistry varies greatly.

Some are very bad, with pH in the low 3s and loaded up with aluminum, which is toxic.

But there are others that are about pH 6, with the metals being mostly iron, which is not as bad as aluminum.

There are many AMD streams that have long held trout, even without any remediation. Even though they look bad, with orange-yellow-tan stained rocks.

 

[afishinado]

The upper sections of the Little Schuylkill.

Mike is very familiar with this stream and been involved over the years in the effort to reclaim it as a trout fishery. He may add some comments or info.

Here is some info on The Little Skuke and it's remediation efforts and successes thus far.

 

[lycoflyfisher]

Many small streams have been treated that now hold fish in the upper west branch susquehanna watershed in Clearfield County. The West branch itself there. Several tribs to Kettle Creek have established treatment systems and trout populations are returning there. Treatment systems in the Tangascootac watershed in Clinton County are also having a positive impact on the trout population there as well.

 

[dryflyguy]

To be sure, there are quite a few streams that were literally dead from AMD. And have been cleaned up to the point that they now support trout.

What the OP asked though, was for streams that have come back to be "really good".
And I would put the clarion in that category

 

[FarmerDave]

Sylvaneous wrote:
Does anyone know of an AMD stream that was brought back to be a really good trout stream? Except the Lackawanna. That river is exceptional.

Syl

Jason, there are several that have improved, some with remediation projects, some just over time.

For example South Sandy. I believe there was one or two projects on that. I believe more of it now holds some trout, but I don't know if you would call that a good trout stream or not.

Here is a link to a study and plan from 2009.

I found it interesting, but no idea if there was progress from the plan stage.

I can think of a few more.

I've heard one of the Toby Creeks has had decent improvement through a remediation project, unfortunately it wasn't the one in Clarion County. I never fished it.

Toby Creek in Clarion County would be a hell of a trout stream if they could clean up the AMD. I understand that there has been discussions of projects for that watershed over the past few years, but it's no longer my stomping grounds so I have not kept up.

 

[FarmerDave]

Jason, I was able to find a more recent article about the South Sandy Watershed work which provides some update.

link

 

[gulfgreyhound]

Slippery Rock creek and the Kiski R. in Saltsburg? cleaned up as far as I know. Toby would be a good one as Dave said.
I believe Slippery Rock may have been the first to get clean? from mine waste. Lime rock grinders if my memory is any good. Most of the cleanup is point source treatment. Beaver Run Resovor has a sulfur water dam on a feeder stream that was put in when I was a kid. Loads of lime rock to buffer the acid water. GG

 

[tomgamber]

mill creek and little mill creek in Clarion county. Stoney creek in Somerset county. There are probably hundreds that have been reclaimed and well as hundreds more that still need help.

 

[gulfgreyhound]

Just a reminder about "clean coal". GG

 

[misanthropist]

I know of several streams that flow orange due to AMD that have excellent trout fishing. Most of which have never had any treatment of any kind. There is a stream in Northwest PA that is blaze orange, but holds a good number of creek chubs, crayfish, caddis flies and huge Brown Trout. And I do mean huge....

Trout show up in strange places and it's almost always kids that find them, mainly because they will fish anywhere without any preconceived notions.

A few years back my sisters oldest son who was about ten years old stumbled upon an excellent trout stream while he was out on a bike riding excursion. He came back to my sister's house and told me he saw a huge trout in a stream a few miles down the road. I knew the stream, it was gross, blaze orange and full of trash courtesy of the "reliefers" as my grandfather called them who lived down there. I told him he was seeing things. I assumed at best someone may have tossed a stocked trout in there. My nephew then grabbed his zebco push-button rod and reel set up and a can of worms and took off down the road. An hour later he returned with a large brown trout measuring 23". It was no doubt a wild fish.

A few weeks later I went down and fished some streamers and caught about 10 Brown Trout, over half of them were over 19". The largest was 24". It was hiding under a washing machine...

Recently the DEP has cracked down on the dumping and there is talk of AMD treatment in the headwaters, so maybe things will improve.

 

[PAgeologist]

Parts of the Bennett Branch of the Sinnemahoning, Clearfield Creek, Blackleggs Creek, Indian Creek, Little Conemaugh are a few more.

 

[PAgeologist]

One of the major issues with AMD cleanup is even though you restore the water quality by treating the discharges, the iron/aluminum precipitate still remains in the stream bed. The water will support trout, but I'm not sure that wild or native populations will return in great numbers for a long time. The more sensitive insects will also have a hard time getting reestablished.

 

[troutbert]

PAgeologist wrote:
One of the major issues with AMD cleanup is even though you restore the water quality by treating the discharges, the iron/aluminum precipitate still remains in the stream bed. The water will support trout, but I'm not sure that wild or native populations will return in great numbers for a long time. The more sensitive insects will also have a hard time getting reestablished.

Many AMD streams, both treated and untreated, support native brook trout and/or wild brown trout. This isn't theoretical, it's known from fishing experiences, and from electrofishing.

There are a great many miles of stream draining out of coal mine areas that are on the wild trout list.

Some support wild trout even with a lot of iron precipitate on the streambed rocks.

Also, when water quality is improved by treatment, the precipitates on the streambed rocks can change.

Examples include the Bennett Branch of the Sinnemahoning, which was bright orange, and the West Branch Susquehanna River at the Rt. 120 bridge near Hyner, which was whitish colored.

In both cases the streambed rocks now have a more normal coloration, now that water quality has improved.

 

[TYoung]

Babb Creek in Tioga County was one of the first streams with AMD problems to get cleaned up in the 90s. That project helped with the water quality of Pine Creek.

 

[PAgeologist]

I am aware that many impacted streams support trout. And there are many others that don't that may or may not be related to AMD.

I am on many of the invertebrate and fish shocking studies we do. We put several streams on the wild trout listing the last couple years.

I don't get concerned with the staining on the rocks. It's more of the iron and aluminum precipitate that is imbedded in the stream bottom. I'm not sure about the West Branch, but there are still numerous areas on the Bennett Branch where the sediment is still primarily AMD precipitate.

 

[Mike]

I can't respond because there is no indication as to how the op defines "really good trout stream." Some people like high numbers of small to moderate size fish while others enjoy a much lower density of fish as long as large ones are present. Some will accept lower densities as long as a fishing spot is peaceful, scenic, and/or remote. The recovering streams in the Schuylkill basin are quite variable over their lengths with respect to trout abundance, species, size distributions. These factors are dictated by localized physical habitat and water quality conditions. It pays to explore rather than fish one mile of stream and then think that the result is transferable to most or all of the other stream miles.

 

[FarmerDave]

Mike wrote:
I can't respond because there is no indication as to how the op defines "really good trout stream." Some people like high numbers of small to moderate size fish while others enjoy a much lower density of fish as long as large ones are present. Some will accept lower densities as long as a fishing spot is peaceful, scenic, and/or remote. The recovering streams in the Schuylkill basin are quite variable over their lengths with respect to trout abundance, species, size distributions. These factors are dictated by localized physical habitat and water quality conditions. It pays to explore rather than fish one mile of stream and then think that the result is transferable to most or all of the other stream miles.

Hey Mike. Are you running for political office? ;-)

Just joking. Good points.