When It Rains, It Drains!
Have You Ever…
Have you ever watched the water from a storm as it passes through your local streets, parking lots, driveways, sidewalks, roofs and yards? Often this water is brown in color from sediment and carries trash and other debris it has picked up along its path. The water then disappears down a grated hole never to be seen again…or does it?
Beneath Our Roadways…
Beneath our roadways lies a network of pipes and drains through which stormwater passes into our local streams. Any trash, debris, or chemicals the stormwater collects along the way is transported into our waterways and even to our local drinking water supply!
Storm drains are the entry point into a storm sewer system, and most stormwater runoff does not get treated before leaving the system. This means you should never dump anything you wouldn’t drink or swim in down a storm drain.
Why Worry About Stormwater?
In areas where impervious surfaces (surfaces water can’t infiltrate, like roofs and parking lots) are abundant, excess runoff, known as stormwater, is a concern. Stormwater is the number one means of pollutants entering our local waterways and also leads to increased stream bank erosion.
Non Point Source Pollution (NPS):
This occurs when rainfall, snowmelt, or irrigation runs over land or through the ground. As water travels, it picks up pollutants and deposits them into our surface and groundwaters. NPS pollution can occur anytime activities disturb the land or water, and any pollutant picked up by runoff can become part of the NPS problem. Nationwide, NPS pollution is the largest source of water quality degradation.
Pollution & Water Quality
Lebanon County has 558 stream miles. According to the PA DEP 2024 Pennsylvania Integrated Water Quality Report, 65% of these streams (363 miles!) are impaired for aquatic life, recreational, or potable water supply uses. Most of these streams are impaired due to agricultural activity, though urban stormwater runoff and acid mine drainage also contribute.
The red lines on the map indicate streams that are impaired in Lebanon County.
DID YOU KNOW …
You can tell the health of a stream by the critters living in it?
Macroinvertebrates are animals that have no backbone and are visible without magnification. Stream-bottom macroinvertebrates include animals like crayfish, mussels, aquatic snails, aquatic worms, and the larvae of aquatic insects.
Stream-bottom macroinvertebrates…
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Macroinvertebrates are a link in the aquatic food chain. In most streams, the energy stored by plants is available to animal life in the form of leaves that fall in the water or in the form of algae that grows on the stream bottom. The algae and leaves are eaten by macroinvertebrates. The macroinvertebrates are a source of energy for larger animals such as fish, which in turn, are a source of energy for birds, raccoons, water snakes, and even fishermen.
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Some cannot survive in polluted water. Others can survive or even thrive in polluted water. In a healthy stream, the stream-bottom community will include a variety of pollution-sensitive macroinvertebrates. In an unhealthy stream, there may be only a few types of non-sensitive macroinvertebrates present.
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It may be difficult to identify stream pollution with water analysis, which only provides information for the time of sampling. Even the presence of fish may not provide information about a pollution problem because fish can move away to avoid polluted water and return when conditions improve. However, most stream-bottom macroinvertebrates cannot move to avoid pollution. A macroinvertebrate sample may thus provide information about pollution that is not present at the time of sample collection.
Source: Save Our Streams Monitor’s Guide to Aquatic Macroinvertebrates, by Loren Larkin Kellogg (Izaak Walton League of America, 1992)