Civilian Base line water tests and trout surveying Marcellus Shale

[Brownout]

Hi guys,

I am starting this thread to fill with information about civilians being able to take base line water readings of public bodies of water, and what would be required for those tests to be legally recognized in the event of contamination of a body of water.

Additionally, I am going to find out if the PFBC plan to get anglers to help in surveying streams in some fashion to protect them ever materialized. The mentioning of which can be found in this article> Fish commission surveying

 

[salvelinus]

I posted this some time ago, and it is worth mentioning again. They train you to be a "waterdog" to monitor drilling activities. Although the article is old, I would think that they would be worth contacting.

Pine Creek Waterdogs

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

If he is not one already, sandfly would be perfect for this.

 

[osprey]

This type of grassroots organizing is what it's going to take to get through this without a disaster occurring and no one being held responsibile , the "Waterdogs" are one of several organized groups observing , documenting and when necessary reporting activities associated with the Marcellus project , please , if you love our outdoors and environment , get involved , the companies that are performing the work KNOW that Pennsylvanians are watching them very closely , this alone might be enough to keep some company from trying to take a little shortcut here or there , resulting in a bad scene. I was an organizer for the United Steelworkers off and on for about 20 years and i wish i could just wave a magic wand and we'd be an organized army vigilant and empowered to deal with this , but the truth is you have to drag people kicking and screaming into the fight , even passionate fly fishers who would bite the bullet if something happened to their little "secret" spot , can't be convinced to take the responsibility to watch a site and document what they observe for 15 minutes a week. If each one of us on this forum would be willing to do just that , observe , document and report on a site close to where we live or fish , somehow compile and save the data , the act of doing this alone would be preventative.

 

[RyanR]

I know there is also a program that trains & deploys retired citizens to collect water quality data. There are several members of our chapter involved with doing this on several of our local streams.

 

[Slate_Drake_9]

TU is doing this. We had our first training in July. Good stuff, but sadly and as usual, not as many showed up as should have to participate in this program. I guess it's the same old story "I'll let the other guy worry about this and do something if something bad happens."

Go here for a press release and contact info:

http://www.patrout.org/Documents/Marcellus/CCCpress.pdf

 

[jdaddy]

"Marcellus Shale region"

Any idea what this defined territory is?

 

[bikerfish]

jdaddy, for most of us, it covers about 2/3rds of pa's best trout waters. google it, thousands of maps out there that will be self-explanatory.
as for the civilian watch dog groups, I love it! this is just what we need. I'm willing to learn and pitch in any way I'm able. this is not the time to trust this issue to our elected officials and government agencies. these are OUR waters, OUR land, OUR responsibility. WE need to watch and report. don't assume someone else is going to do it for you. we all know what happens when we "assume"?!

 

[trout17]

jdaddy,
This seems to be a good site.


http://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/deputate/minres/oilgas/new_forms/marcellus/PAMarcellusDistributionMap.jpg

Jim Kearney