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Penn State: What is The Potter County Triple Divide Watershed Coalition?
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The Triple Divide Watershed Coalition was formed this year in Potter County and is comprised of the nine public water supplies in that county, with assistance from the County Commissioners, Penn State Extension, Potter County Education Council, and the Department of Environmental Protection.
Inspired by water quality concerns from natural gas well drilling, the group is identifying some new ways to do business that they hope will prove to be good for water quality.
Potter County hosts the only triple divide watershed east of the Mississippi in the United States and is where the Allegheny, Susquehanna, and Genesee Rivers begin.
A Water Resources Education Network Grant from the League of Women Voters Organization assisted the group in forming. The grant provided funds for each public water supply to test and document their water sources for those parameters that were outside their regular testing routine and associated with natural gas drilling activities.
The grant also provided funding for the development and implementation of an educational program to be delivered in each school in the public water supply areas. This program entitled “Understanding Water Sources” helps participants understand the sources of their drinking water and the importance of protecting those sources.
The educational program helps to identify the zones of protection in the community and was piloted at a Potter County Natural Gas Task Force meeting. Extension Educator, Jim Clark and Coudersport Water Supply Operator, Gareth Gockley, presented the program and will also present in the Coudersport school system.
The coalition is rotating their business meetings to the different communities that have a public water system. They plan to survey the systems and identify common inputs where they could group order supplies and reduce their costs.
Many of these rural supplies have only one operator and in some cases part time operators. This becomes an issue when the operator goes on vacation or is out sick. One idea is the training of all the water operators to be familiar with all of the water systems in the county, creating reliability to the systems operations.
Although the concern over gas well drilling lead to the creation of the Triple Divide Watershed Coalition, there are other risks that these rural water systems face. Potter County is the first county in the state to have a Source Water Protection Plan for every public water supply in the county.
The coalition is really about the implementation of those protection plans. Communicating and working together now they will face future challenges and risks together, benefiting the citizens and the water resources.
(Written By: Jim Clark, Extension Educator, McKean County. The article is reprinted from the Penn State Extension Watershed Winds online newsletter.)
Note: The Triple Divide Watershed Coalition will be featured in the Water Resources Webinar Series on November 21 from noon to 1:00. Please visit the Water Resources Events page for more information.
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11/7/2011 |
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