Water Quality Report

Study Findings
Rivers in Dry and Wet Weather
Results from the wet and dry sampling of the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio rivers was surprising in many ways.

• In dry weather conditions water quality is quite good, meeting fishable/swimmable classifications, with few exceptions.
• Some test sites indicate unexpectedly higher bacteriological levels in dry weather. These testing sites corresponded with points of frequent public access.
• In wet weather conditions river water bacteriological quality is very bad. This is reflected by the ACHD, CSO flagging 7 program.
• After a significant rainfall rivers take several days to return to dry weather conditions. Some sites are slower to return than others. “ many people ignore the ACHD, CSO program flags and access rivers and streams before it is safe.

Streams in Dry Weather

• Stream showed higher levels of dry weather bacteria contamination than rivers. From this we can infer that conditions will not improve in wet weather.
  
• Some points of high contamination include areas of frequent public access.
  
• All Streams in the study area last year have the basic chemical and physical conditions to support aquatic life despite high fecal coliform concentrations. The benthic organism survey will help the determine the ability of the these streams to sustain life.

Recommendations

• Once the 3 Rivers 2nd Nature baseline studies are complete sources for bacteriological contamination need to be identified. This needs to occur on both the rivers and the streams.
  
• The more detailed benthic analysis that we are currently undertaking, will help to determine the ability of streams to sustain aquatic life.
  
• Once the dry weather conditions in streams are resolved, it will be important to consider, wet weather sampling for the streams.
  
• If we are going to conceptualize our urban rivers as "living rivers" citizens interested in building a constituency for long-term change will need to be informed about the nature of our opportunities, and be willing to advocate for the goal of a living river.
  

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)