Mar 26
To earn a patch, some Girl Scouts are pulling on waders and going fly-fishing. Jessica Kester of Allegheny Land Trust helped bring the Trout Unlimited ‘STREAM Girls’ program to western Pennsylvania. She says participants not only go fishing. They look for other aquatic life, and learn which species – such as mayflies – are sensitive …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.currentcast.org/sustainable-fisheries/stream-girls/
Mar 25
A group of trees lining a babbling brook does more than make an idyllic picture. “It filters out nutrients, it holds soil in place, it adds shade when the trees have canopy to streams, and controls water temperature,” says Alysha Trexler with the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. She says excess fertilizer from farm fields, dirt from rural …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.currentcast.org/agricultural-runoff/riparian-buffers/
Mar 24
For more than 100 years, coal was mined near Turtle Creek in western Pennsylvania. The river became polluted. “But that began to improve through the 1970s,” says Gary Smith of the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission. He says regulations and restoration projects led to cleaner water. Then last year a very wet winter filled abandoned mines …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.currentcast.org/stormwater-management/turtle-creek/
Mar 23
Volunteers remove more than 18 tons of trash from Great Lakes beaches each year. But… “It’s not just stuff that’s left on the beach that is the problem,” says Anna McCartney of Pennsylvania Sea Grant. She says that during a two-year program, Erie Public School students learned that some marine debris starts out in their communities. …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.currentcast.org/marine-debris/marine-debris-in-the-watershed/
Jan 22
Using a three-zone buffer system around a stream can dramatically improve water quality. Zone in on this: When we destroy the ecosystem along a stream, we threaten water quality, displace wildlife, and increase the risk of flooding. Robert Tjaden of the University of Maryland says that a three-part buffer between the water and adjacent land …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.currentcast.org/stormwater-management/protecting-a-streams-comfort-zone/
