anf brookies

[silverfox]

thanks mike, also below fits w rleep comments on south area a n f (w/much pottsville bedrock):

The Missing Fish of Raven Run: Gluppity-Glup or Smogulous Smoke?

In my work assessing water quality and fish communities in headwater streams in support of Pennsylvania’s Unassessed Streams Initiative (described here and here) I often encounter streams tha…

turnerfamilyexpedition12.wordpress.com

"Acidic headwater streams are all too common. The southeast portion of the Allegheny National Forest is especially hard-hit. Our recent sampling shows that about 20% of the headwater streams within the watersheds of Millstone Creek, Spring Creek, and Bear Creek have a pH < 5.0 and have no fish at all. An equal number have a baseflow pH > 5.0 but < 5.8 and have some fish but are significantly impaired. In other words, about half the small streams in this forested landscape suffer to some degree from acid deposition."

I think it's likely that it's less about a measured pH and more about the lack of buffering. What's worse than a low pH is an unstable pH. For fish anyway. Going back (quite a while) to my fish husbandry days, I learned pretty quickly that a lot of fish are tolerant of a pretty good range of pH outside of their preferred range. What they aren't tolerant of at all is wild swings in pH.

Streams that lack buffering capacity likely see wild swings in pH during precipitation events. That's the culprit of the fishlessness.

This is where I do support the concept of liming (https://wchstv.com/community/wild-a...xHA-2PTRNtmBgDlsv6onI1LK1wx9IbPOselFpW1vt7zTc) even though the geology likely means the stream was always infertile and likely always had a low pH. The swings are caused by acid deposition, which is a human-caused pollution event. In theory, without acid deposition, even with the low buffering capacity, it's possible streams like those in the post had fish at one point prior to industrialization.

 

[lycoflyfisher]

The acidic conditions of acid deposition impacted watersheds deserves more study in my opinion. There are lots if theorized remediation efforts, perhaps non more important than continued improvements in air quality that will keep the positive ph trends in precip going. Others include in stream or extreme headwaters living with limestone sand. Other ideas include limestone diversion wells, terrestrial liming and in some cases surfacing dirt roads and lining ditches with limestone aggregate seems to have had a positive impact in some streams.

What is lacking from a data perspective is continuous instream monitoring for pH to better understand the acidic spikes in particular during snowmelt conditions. Also, understanding the metal leaching and ultimately moving through these watersheds during those conditions would also help to better understand what we are up against.

Silverfox brings up a good point regarding extreme pH swings and I agree that it would certainly be a factor in fish survival and again worth further exploration.

 

[Mike]

Good article. Also liked it because it featured Peltoperlids, my favorite stonefly nymph. Yes, we have them in some SE Pa streams, but of course I have seen them in different parts of the state. They were always in fairly infertile environments, but I have found them with good ST populations, including Class A’s.

I was surprised to see the comment, however, to the effect that acid precip never received the attention that it deserved. Maybe I was too close to it. It certainly received lots of scientific attention in the mid-1970’s through at least 1990 in Pa, NY, and Scandinavia. It was a major topic within the PFBC and one individual in particular was quite involved, but all biologists and a number of administrators were concerned about it and some were monitoring pH’s during periods of runoff/snow melt, in particular as it pertained to some vulnerable stocked streams. There were even some stocked trout fish kills between preseason stockings and opening day. One on the (East Br?)Standing Stone Ck and another in the same basin at Penn Roosevelt Lake come to mind. Acid precip was frequently referenced in PFBC stream survey reports if total alkalinities were 10 ppm or less, as these were considered to be vulnerable streams. Additionally, Penn State had a major study going in a SW Pa stream system and there were acid problems in some higher elevation (at least 2) public lakes. Maybe what the author meant was that it never received the serious regulatory attention that it deserved.

 

[silverfox]

Good article. Also liked it because it featured Peltoperlids, my favorite stonefly nymph. Yes, we have them in some SE Pa streams, but of course I have seen them in different parts of the state. I don’t recall them not being in fairly infertile environments, but I have found them with good ST populations, including Class A’s.

Same. Found one in a highly polluted (above the pollution) stream in central pa 2 years ago doing a macro survey. Awesome bugs.

 

[k-bob]

Snip from kocovsky and carline 2006, free on researchgate, recalls Mike's point post 42 that two streams w same very low alkalinity may differ.

 

[FarmerDave]

Good article. Also liked it because it featured Peltoperlids, my favorite stonefly nymph. ...

I liked it because it was short.

 

[k-bob]

Mike's point that PA brook trout streams can have decent or better fish populations even with very low alkalinity reminded me of this article. Some of the berks/ schuylkill streams he noted w low alkalinity but good ST are probably in Shawangunk bedrock. Paper below (w free downloads) shows very low alkalinity but median pH that is not so bad in some eastern PA shawangunk bedrock streams.

Will try to think more about base-flow pH itself versus buffering / alkalinity going forward. Thanks

 

[silverfox]

Just updating the sidebar discussion here on stocking jurisdiction in ANF. It's 100% up to PFBC to manage the waters within ANF. USFS plays no role in stocking decisions.

On the alkalinity issue, I noticed the Tuscarora formation in the graphs that k-bob posted. One area I'm very familiar with originates in the Tuscarora formation. Those streams are listed as impaired and the cause is acidification. I looked at several of them on Saturday (partly spurred by this discussion) and they showed 0 for KH and GH w/ a pH of 5.4. They've been fishless as long as I've been alive, or since the 90's when I was old enough to care anyway. A pH of 5.4 isn't terrible. I've seen brook trout in low 4's before.

Downstream after the tribs combine into a larger stream, it flows through a limestone belt w/ a few feeders coming directly out of the limestone bed, and the pH shot up over 7 w/ KH at ~40 and GH at ~50 w/ sensitive macros and minnow species present. So there are macros and fish down in the buffered water, but up in the headwaters where the temp was barely 60F, and the pH wasn't unreasonable, there was no life at all. I'm sure Aluminum is playing a role there too.

 

[FarmerDave]

Aluminum is a big issue. I know one tiny stream that I used to fish. I could step across this stream in many places, but it still held a good population of natives. Fishing farther downstream, I came across a small spring and everything below that for a ways was stained white. One would think it was limestone, but I caught nothing below that spring. There was a fair amount of strip mining in the area, and I concluded it was aluminum. Moving even further downstream, it gets more diluted so eventually you find trout again.

I agree with the sentiment that on many of the streams in the ANF are dead in the headwaters and improves as you head downstream. However, I found this very confusing at first. Not about whether it was true, but why it is true. For the sake of additional discussion... A little ways south of there, where the sources of low PH are man made point sources, the opposite is the norm. This is where I grew up. Trout in the headwaters and/or a few small tributaries, and dead at some point as you head downstream because of low PH. And I do mean dead. Toby Creek in Clarion county has a ph of about 3 before it reaches the river and that is not a guess. link It also is not unique.

 

[silverfox]

Aluminum is a big issue. I know one tiny stream that I used to fish. I could step across this stream in many places, but it still held a good population of natives. Fishing farther downstream, I came across a small spring and everything below that for a ways was stained white. One would think it was limestone, but I caught nothing below that spring. There was a fair amount of strip mining in the area, and I assumed that was aluminum.

I agree with the sentiment that on many of the streams in the ANF are dead in the headwaters and improves as you head downstream. However, I found this very confusing at first. Not about whether it was true, but why it is true. For the sake of additional discussion, in areas where the source of low PH are man made point sources, the opposite is likely more common. Trout in the headwaters, and dead at some point as you head downstream because of low PH. And I do mean dead. Toby Creek in Clarion county has a ph of about 3 before it reaches the river.

Aluminum is a HUGE issue. Look at where Moshannon enters the West Branch Susquehanna. That white/blue line to the east of where Moshannon enters the WB is all aluminum precipitate.

Somewhat related/unrelated, there was a massive effort conducted recently by a federal agency down south to properly inventory brook trout in miles and miles of headwater streams. What they found is that brook trout really aren't occupying the smallest 1st order streams. There's a "goldy locks" effect where brook trout are persisting in a much smaller niche of habitat than previously assumed. With climate change and encroaching threats downstream, their realm is continually shrinking.

 

[use2wuz]

I can understand your perspective because of the following: If your not reading peer reviewed journal articles everyday or essentially part of the fisheries science where some of this stuff is common knowledge, your getting your information about conservation from PA fish and Boat and other anglers volunteering to do conservation. And from PAFB and anglers volunteering in conservation the messaging about wild trout often sounds like this “ if we clean it they will come”. Its water quality/temp/habitat and thats it. Yet we see these projects around the country in pristine watersheds where they shift the stream towards invasive brown trout. So your thinking, great! Their fun to catch, they are beautiful fish, they slam flies, they are being born in the stream whats not to love, feels “natural”.

If your with me up until this part, heres where it goes to absolute s***. So we picked the invasive species and a bunch if people came around telling is we should “protect native species”. Sounds like some kind of hippie virtue statement to you. We got these fish that people enjoy flyfishing for so much and we are going to let our fishing bias us and we will label things that protect a top 100 worlds most harmful invasive species as “conservation”.

details

GISD

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www.iucngisd.org

https://www.usu.edu/fel/publications/pdf/Budy&Gaeta2017BrownToutinNAChapter20.pdf

Well lets be honest to a lot of people they really don’t care if we loose native brook trout in Pa if there are big brown trout everywhere. Now we have left conservation at the bus stop 100 miles back but whatever a lot of fly fishermen don’t actually care about conservation. They don’t have to, its not required for the sport.

Right when i’m about to loose you on my long diatribe that sounds like a virtue statement, theres this. You don’t get to keep your invasive brown trout fishery JUST because you pick it. “What did he say?”

See we just wanted to screw up the aquatic ecosystem…..a little bit, just till we got it how we liked it. We didn’t know what a “trophic casacde” was(silver foxes example of lake trout causing cutthroat declines causing grizzly and iconic American predatory birds to decline. We didn’t know that we could crash the whole ecosystem.

Ok i get it, i get it, screw grizzly bears, eagles and those furry organisms that don’t crush streamers. I’m with ya screw em, as ling as the one creature I like to get to eat my dry flies is there and the streams got water we are good.

But wait!

Montana has its brown trout disappearing at an alarming rate disproportionately to native cutthroat trout all of a sudden its making the news, there are calls in the media I saw this month for the governor to make an invasive brown trout protection council by the endless guides that built their business on invasive species! Looks like what ever is causing the declines, the folks that bet on the invasive species may not get to keep it and the native fosh evolved for where it lives looks to be doing not as bad. The great lakes had invasive alewives that put lake trout and atlantic salmon on birth control due to enzyme thiaminase that degrades vitamin B 1 in natives gut and impairs DNA synthesis. We had to act quickly…..and stock more invasive species. Enter the pacific salmon and rainbow trout people call steelhead. They tug pretty good huh, problem solved. They eat the alweives good a multi billion dollar sport foshery is created and built on multiple invasive species. The pacifics est the alweives a little too good actually, now their crashing their own food supply and the salmon fishery is imploding becaus eof the instability from the invasive species introductions. Alweives actually predicted to be gone but their likely going to take kings and cohos with them and entires towns up there going to feel the pain. The people that picked the invasive species introduced instability and didnt get to keep em.

See a theme?

Ok ok ok “this guy needs to STF**

So maybe your invasive species will or won’t survive its own ecosystem toppling effects, thank god it somehow survived all that( still crushing streamers too). Life is good.

Then finally someone else who shares your same ideals about how we whould treat our ecosystem to the T comes along. Except….they like another invasive species and it eats your invasive species or carries a disease that infects your invasive species. What ever it is, blue cats, flatheads, snakeheads, brown trout, rainbow trout, wells catfish, mekong catfish, egg/nest raiders like round gobies.

Now your lost with overwhelming loss of biodiversity, non functioning ecosystem, and despite all that the streamers not getting crushed now.

Your species is the one! It somehow survived ALL that and right when your favorite species is finally the last one standing and people have somehow completely stopped dumping in competing invasive species. Well now it has destabilized the prey base and is forced to compete with only itself due to loss of all other biodiversity and its high numbers and tough competition stunt out its own population size at the individual level. We have seen this with multiple invasive species(blue cats for example, lake trout as sulver fox mentioned). Your brown trout is now the size of a brook trout.

Invasive species introduce instability to the ecosystem and take decades to centuries to longer in many cases to really cause harm. Its not anyones fault who fishes for them, i do and will. Its not your fault you didn’t know any of this its a messaging problem from our failing fisheries managers afraid of some akward wild trout summits.

A testament to humankind’s inability to manage natural resources

 

[k-bob]

This article, free online, mentions the lethal level of dissolved aluminum for brook trout in its abstract. I have one of these aluminum test kits for water maybe $130. In some places, such as michaux forest streams w white quartz streambed, I've seen lethal levels of aluminum even at low flows. Of course no fish.

Dont recall trying a pottsville or tuscarora bedrock one... but aluminum issues for brook trout in tuscarora bedrock streams are reported w/ professional work in shown abstract.

Nice free bedrock geology map: put "arcgis pa bedrock" in google. More useful on computer versus phone.

 

[k-bob]

Chart I made w data from a penn state dissertation, dont remember which one, and attached to aluminum test kit. Idea is acid rain effect on aluminum. To me, chart suggests that much more than .075 mg/litre of dissolved aluminum at low/base flow is a negative sign for brookies in a small headwater stream. As noted, kirby groundtruthing study says .2 mg/l is roughly lethal level. Aluminum would also increase at higher flow as pH falls.