Pittsburgh Pool Reports

Water Quality Report

Rivers in Dry and Wet Weather
We were interested in understanding just how clean the rivers of the Pittsburgh Pool are. According to the experts that advise 3 Rivers 2nd Nature, biological conditions in these rivers are improving, with fish species increasing by as much as 400% over the last 20 years. This leaves bacteriological indicators such as fecal coliform (which indicate the presence of sewage) and toxics suspended in the mud (the legacy of industry) as the two areas with little information available. Our interest was primarily in human use of the rivers in terms of swimming, boating and fishing. We decided that the bacteriological indicators would be an area of study with the most immediate benefit.

Dry weather sampling (during periods of no rain) gives us an understanding of how clean the water is in terms of bacteriological indicators of agents that can cause gastrointestinal illness. 6 The objective of wet weather sampling is to see to what extent the level of contamination of the water increases during rainfall, and how quickly the water quality recovers to dry weather conditions. Because of the dynamic nature of water quality, and its relationship to all landforms which drain into the rivers “ wet weather conditions are significantly different than dry weather conditions. Rain falling on the urban landscape creates the potential for a range of pollutants to enter our waterways.

In order to obtain this information, water samples were taken from transects, or straight lines, across the Monongahela, Allegheny and Ohio rivers, (See map for details). From each transect, 3 water samples were taken: one 50 feet from each riverbank, and one from the center of the river. In this way, we could learn whether water quality is different in the center of the river than along the edges, where people are more likely to come in contact with river water.

The main water contaminant tested for was fecal coliform, which shows whether fecal matter of warm-blooded animals is present in the water. Fecal coliform does not cause illness by itself, but it can indicate the presence of other organisms that may cause gastrointestinal illness. Our tests do not indicate whether the source of the contamination is human or from other animals, or even whether it comes from a leaking septic system, a dog run, raccoon colony, or a sewer overflow. What fecal coliform levels can tell us is the collective impact that these diverse sources of bacte-riological pollutants are having on our rivers. Our testing is the first step in understanding the baseline conditions and defining a test program which can identify the sources of the problems.

Streams in Dry Weather
Although there is little information about water quality in our main rivers, there is even less on the tributary streams which flow through our neighborhoods, parks and communities. For every mile of river in the Pittsburgh Pool there are four miles of streams which feed into those rivers. Our experts recommended extensive physical chemical analyses and benthic surveys to tell us more about the aquatic organisms in our area streams. We also studied the streams for their bacteriological conditions, to compare them to the main rivers. Because of the physical difficulty and costs of a wet weather study of streams, we focused on dry weather conditions.

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Unabridged Water Quality Report PDF Format
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Cover Page (524k)
pt 1 Summary and Intro (47k)
pt 2 Materials and Methods (59k)
pt 3 Pathogens Indicators(125k)
pt 4 Allegheny River(193k)
pt 5 Monongahela River (156k)
pt 6 Ohio River(132k)
pt 7 Conclusions(80k)

Appendix
Appendix A - PA Water Quality Criteria, Physical and Chemical Parameters. (192k)
Appendix B - Fecal Coliform and E. coli data for Allegheny River. (20k)
Appendix C- Fecal Coliform and E. coli data for Monongehela River.(20k)
Appendix D - Fecal Coliform and E. coli data for Ohio River. (20k)
Appendix E- Tributary Watershed Analysis (428k)

6 Gastrointestinal illnesses resulting in a range of flu and stomach flu like symptoms can be caused by organisms found in sewage contaminated waters ie, Salmonella, Giardia etc.