We’re pleased to announce that Stony Run, a tributary of Indian Creek in Springfield Township, Fayette County, has been placed on the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s Existing Use list as an Exceptional Value stream, a designation reserved for the Commonwealth’s cleanest streams, as a result of a petition we submitted in 2013.
Stony Run is a small freestone stream flowing off of Chestnut Ridge in Springfield Township, Fayette County (near Normalville). It reaches Indian Creek just downstream of White’s Bridge on Route 653. Our water sampling data show the stream to be in excellent health with a population of native brook trout. The new Exceptional Value (EV) status applies to the entire Stony Run basin, a total of 4.42 stream miles.
We long suspected Stony Run was exceeding its designated use of cold water fishes. Macroinvertebrate sampling conducted in February 2013 confirmed this suspicion. Because the law requires the protection and maintenance of existing water quality, MWA petitioned the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP) to recognize the existing Exceptional Value status of the watershed. PADEP confirmed this status through their own analysis of the watershed.
What is stream designation?
Stony Run during our Fall 2013 sampling.
Hang on, this is going to get a little wonky. Pennsylvania’s Chapter 93 “Water Quality Standards” are regulations rooted in the federal Clean Water Act and Pennsylvania’s Clean Streams Law. These regulations allow PADEP to protect and restore water quality in rivers and streams across the Commonwealth. Chapter 93’s antidegradation scheme exists in large part to maintain a stream’s water quality where the water quality exceeds the minimum level of quality required to protect stream uses such as aquatic life and recreation. Such streams are eligible for the “special protection” designations of High Quality or Exceptional Value. Until the formal rulemaking process is completed so that Chapter 93 itself is amended to reflect this change, Stony Run will continue to appear in Chapter 93 without a special protection designation; in the meantime, however, its’ having been placed on DEP’s Existing Use list means that it will be protected as an Exceptional Value stream.
So what does this mean?
A sculpin found during our sampling of Stony Run.
Streams that have been designated as special protection— those with either “High Quality” or “Exceptional Value” status, are subject to additional scrutiny if activities that could degrade water quality are proposed in the watershed. In the case of Stony Run, permit requests involving proposed discharges that may affect the watershed will have to demonstrate the proposed discharges will never degrade the existing Exceptional Value level of water quality.
We’re celebrating this recent designation as it will result in more protections for Stony Run which is among the cleanest streams in the Indian Creek watershed and in the larger Yough. These special protection streams are among our most special– they have largely intact forest cover, minimal development, and often harbor populations of naturally reproducing native brook trout. Their protection is of the highest importance to us and we’re very pleased to have secured this status for Stony Run.