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Bay Journal: Hellbender Habitat Slammed By Pollution From Shale Gas Development In PA's Loyalsock Creek

By Ad Crable, Chesapeake Bay Journal

Repeated sediment pollution incidents and accusations of destroying habitat for rare hellbenders on a Pennsylvania “river of the year” have brought criticism over natural gas operations in a scenic valley and revealed weak protections for “exceptional value” streams.

With three separate incidents a month apart — one investigated only after residents complained —the state Department of Environmental Protection has cited Pennsylvania General Energy for a slew of violations that sent plumes of sediment into Loyalsock Creek in Lycoming County in the rugged northcentral part of the state.

The Pennsylvania-based natural gas producer is building a water withdrawal point on the stream and laying a 20-inch pipeline across it to connect up to 80 fracked gas wells that will be developed on mountaintops on opposite sides of the stream in Loyalsock State Forest.

The company obtained leases to create the wells from the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources before Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf placed a moratorium on fracking leases in state forests in 2015.

DCNR has said it will require the company to use micro-boring, a technique in which the pipeline will be bored under the forest “in a way that few trees will be cut, no fragmentation will occur, and the pipeline corridor will be completely concealed,” according to agency spokesman Wes Robinson.

After inspecting the in-stream and bank work in August and September, DEP cited the company for the failure of a coffer dam, inadequate pollution controls on streambanks, illegally blocking the entire stream, failure to report sediment pollution and not following approved sediment control measures.

DEP spokeswoman Megan Lehman said she couldn’t comment on whether monetary fines would be assessed with the violations. The stream work is finished and the company is currently in compliance with permits, she said.

The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission is also investigating the pollution and has submitted a proposed settlement to the company to pay for environmental damages to the stream and the “recreational value loss to the anglers of the Commonwealth,” said Commission spokesman Anthony Quarrancino.

“Ninety-nine percent of the time when dealing with sediment pollution, it’s macroinvertebrate damage,” he said.

Macroinvertebrates are insects, snails, worms and other aquatic creatures that fish depend on for food.

The incidents garnered public attention when Peter Petokas, a leading researcher on eastern hellbenders, said populations of the giant aquatic salamander have been disappearing from Loyalsock Creek because of sediment pollution.

The hellbender was named by the state legislature as Pennsylvania’s state amphibian in 2019 and promoted as “Pennsylvania’s clean water ambassador.”

Petokas, of the Lycoming College Clean Water Institute, said sediment is filling in the cracks between large rocks on the stream bottom that hellbenders use for

refuge as well as smothering the spaces between smaller rocks where hellbender food such as crayfish and other aquatic insects live.

“It’s a twofold problem,” Petokas said. “You’ve lost habitat at multiple levels.”

In addition to the Pennsylvania General Energy site, natural gas companies withdraw water at three other sites on the Loyalsock. DEP cited sediment pollution violations at one of them in 2015 and again in 2018.

There have also been multiple pipeline crossings of the stream.

Petokas said the gas industry can’t be blamed for all the sediment-related destruction of hellbender habitat he has seen in recent years.

“To be fair, there are many sources of sediment going into the watershed,” he said, citing runoff from logging, agriculture, mining, dirt roads and construction activity. “On the other hand, the gas industry is doing some things that do cause an increase in the sediment loads.”

The 54-mile Loyalsock is a beloved and remote stream known for trout fishing, paddling and its beauty.

A tributary to the Susquehanna River, the “Sock” is classified as “exceptional value” by DEP. By law, its water quality must be “maintained and protected.”

In 2018, it was named DCNR’s Pennsylvania River of the Year and called a “timeless treasure.”

The Susquehanna River Basin Commission, which grants water withdrawal permits, does not consider a stream’s water quality designation when evaluating a permit application. Rather, the decision is based on whether the withdrawal will significantly affect stream flow.

The natural gas industry is the third-largest user of water in the Susquehanna basin, behind public water supplies and power plants.

In the Loyalsock, 600 million gallons of water were withdrawn and not returned by the natural gas industry between 2008 and 2018, records show.

Although water quality designations such as exceptional value are not considered in granting water intake permits, users must suspend withdrawals if they might adversely affect water levels, such as during low-flow conditions in the summer or fall, noted Andrew Gavin, the agency’s deputy executive director.

Still, the lack of protection coming from the Loyalsock’s exceptional value designation frustrates Barbara Jarmoska, who lives near the work site and is a member of the Keep It Wild citizens group.

“It’s just tragic. I’ve watched the creek drop to the lowest I’ve ever seen,” she said, referencing the cumulative effect of the water withdrawals. “It’s just been a debacle from the beginning,” she said of what she calls the “industrialization” of the state forest in the Loyalsock valley. “People don’t matter.”

The problems with the Loyalsock gas project are a reminder of how much fracking may yet come on the 700,000 acres of state forest lands leased for gas drilling. About two-thirds of gas leases sold a decade ago have been unused.

Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell authorized the lease of state forestlands but shortly before leaving office in 2011 placed a moratorium on new leases, citing fears of destroying the character of the state’s remaining wild lands.

Republican Gov. Tom Corbett sought to allow more leases on state forests and state parks, but the move was held up in courts and Gov. Wolf declared a new moratorium in 2015. Republican legislators recently failed in a new attempt to open up gas leases in the wake of the war in Ukraine.

(Reprinted from Chesapeake Bay Journal)

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Related Articles - Loyalsock Creek:

-- Exceptional Value Water Quality Designation, State Forest Land, River Honors Were Not Enough To Protect Loyalsock Creek From Natural Gas Drilling & Pipelines In Lycoming County - By Friends Of The 'Sock [PaEN]

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