OHIO RIVER BASIN REPORTS
Spring 2006
Submitted by Kareen Milcic,
Basin Director, PA-AWRA, Ohio River Basin
Watershed Management
Water is one of Pennsylvania’s most precious and basic resources. Pennsylvanians use 14.3 billion gallons of water everyday. Federal, state, and local programs are in place to protect this valuable resource. Under the federal National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System program, significant progress has been made in restoring, maintaining, and protecting water quality. This program addresses point sources of pollutants from industrial waste discharges and municipal wastewater discharges. Manmade activities, however, also cause and contribute to non-point source pollution. Non-point source discharges of pollutants result from various types of activities including urban storm water runoff, land development, mineral extraction, and agricultural runoff.
Both point and non-point source discharges of pollutants contribute to stream impairments. Sediments, oils, greases, and other pollutants are carried into surface waters by the non-point discharges of storm water runoff from development and urban runoff. Pollution from non point sources impacts water quality; the discharge rates and volumes of non-point source discharges impact the severity and frequency of floods.
More and more people are working to improve and protect Pennsylvania’s waters. There are new initiatives underway to address those manmade activities that impact water quality and quantity. One new initiative is watershed management. The Department of Environmental Protection recently established a Bureau of Watershed Management.
Streams, lakes and other bodies of water are affected by what happens in a watershed—the land area that drains to them. The Ohio River drainage basin encompasses over 19,500 square miles in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and includes the Allegheny River drainage basin and the Monongahela River drainage basin. According to information published by ORSANCO (the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission), the Ohio River is a source of drinking water for more than 3 million people and more than 25 million people (almost 10 percent of the population of the United States) live within the Ohio River drainage basin. ORSANCO also attributes non-point source from urban runoff, agriculture, and abandoned mine drainage as major contributors to water pollution in the Ohio River.
The majority of the Ohio River drainage basin is within the boundary of the Southwest Regional Office of the Department of Environmental Protection. The Watershed Program in this office is placing a priority focus on all aspects of storm water management (i.e. controlling the rate, quantity and quality of storm water runoff). The goals of this program are effective storm water management. Managing storm water effectively maintains groundwater recharge, maintains surface water quality and controls the rate and volume of surface water flows.
Watershed management promotes innovative and effective technologies in the area of post construction storm water management. Various Best Management Practices (BMPs) may be employed to control storm water runoff. Best Management Practices can be used individually and collectively to replicate the pre-construction runoff and infiltration that occurred on a site prior to development. The effective use of BMPs aids in the protection of ground and surface water resources. Best Management Practices may include permeable paving, storm water infiltration, establishing grass swales, bioretention, filter strips, rooftop runoff management, and storm water management basins.
The Department of Environmental Protection has published a draft Storm Water Best Management Practices Manual. This draft manual establishes recommended guidance for storm water management utilizing best management practices (BMPs); provides the planning concepts and design standards to guide local and state governments, planners, land developers, contractors and others involved with planning, designing, reviewing, approving and constructing land development projects in meeting those needs; advances the most recent innovations in storm water management focusing on preserving onsite and offsite pre-construction hydraulic conditions, including volume and rate management through local onsite management.
The Watershed Management Program that addresses the Ohio River Drainage basin is committed to working with counties to promote countywide Act 167 Storm Water Management Plans. Act 167 is commonly referred to as the Storm Water Management Act and provides for the regulation of land and water use for flood control and storm water management. One of the purposes of the Act is to encourage planning and management of storm water runoff in each watershed that is consistent with sound water and land use practices. The Watershed Program will encourage the development of ordinances that can be adopted by local municipalities to facilitate the use of the new Best Management Practices. The goal of this effort is to restore watersheds that do not meet clean water, natural resource and public health goals.