An impact to Pennsylvania’s vast river systems sends ripples out for hundreds, even thousands, of miles.

Rain or snow falling on Pennsylvania can travel thousands of miles, finding its way to the Chesapeake Bay via the Susquehanna River, to the Gulf of Mexico via the mighty Mississippi, and to the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River via a multitude of rivers and streams. Along those thousands of miles of waterway, precipitation from Pennsylvania provides fresh water for thousands of farms, millions of people and uncounted wildlife.

But, changes in natural water flows, nutrient runoff and sedimentation are altering the survival needs of freshwater animals like mussels, crayfish and amphibians – among the species most at risk in the United States - and will have a tremendous impact on the ability of Pennsylvania’s rivers to provide drinking water and sustain life here and across the East Coast.

Susquehanna River: Pennsylvania icon

Much good work is being done to protect this magnificent and highly threatened river, which once teemed with migratory fish like the American shad and the American eel. 

But the Susquehanna’s enormous size and complexity require a conservation approach of a breadth that is difficult to grasp. The Conservancy is framing an approach to conserving the Susquehanna aimed at supporting existing efforts, and tackling the key threats that challenge the entire watershed.

The ‘Old Growth’ Rivers

Some of the rivers of the Upper Ohio and Upper Allegheny river system, such as French Creek, have been spared the worst impacts of human activities, and they are performing as a conservation refuge for fishes and mussels found nowhere. They are as close to old-growth rivers as there are in this country.

Priorities for the Conservancy, which has been working in the system since 1991, are the more intact, higher viability rivers, which may eventually provide seed animals for repopulating other more degraded parts of the system.

Delaware: The Undammed Waters

The Delaware – a nationally designated wild and scenic river – remains the longest, undammed, free-flowing river on the East Coast. Shad, sturgeon, eel and other species still migrate up through the Delaware River each spring. But, today they’re joined by a massive human population, nearly 20 million of whom depend on the river and its tributaries for their water supply.

And, the system is under pressure from development, from decades of converting land and controlling water flow that have disturbed the river’s natural rhythms, from invasive plants have taken hold.

To restore balance, the Conservancy has helped the Delaware River Basin Commission to design a sustainable flow management system that protects human lives and property but modifies the frequency and duration of floods so they better mimic conditions needed for fish spawning and other natural events.

The Lake Effect

Presque Isle, a 3,200-acre sandy peninsula jutting into Lake Erie at the City of Erie that teems with wildlife, is one of two priority Lake Erie sites in Pennsylvania that the Conservancy has included in its Great Lakes Conservation Blueprint.

The second is the Conneaut Creek watershed, which the Conservancy has designated one of the 20 most important watersheds for conservation in the Great Lakes basin.

For years the Conservancy has worked in the Great Lakes to promote innovative land management practices, battle invasive species and advocate for conservation-friendly policies. 
 

Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © Dave Spier (Autumn, panoramic view of the Susquehanna river, Pennsylvania); Photo © Jon Golden (Mussel inventory at Clinch River, Virginia); Photo © Patrick von Keyserling/TNC (Woodbourne Preserve).