Is the Schuylkill River healthy enough for you to swim, kayak or fish there?
That’s the question researchers want to answer in a water-quality monitoring project announced this week.
The project will enlist scores of volunteers, dubbed community scientists, to document trash along the river in four counties. It will also take a smaller group of trained volunteers to test and monitor for E. coli and turbidity among other things.
Concern about the bacteria and trash are the main things keeping people away from the river, according to a survey of residents of Berks, Montgomery, Chester and Philadelphia counties, said Michael Hartshorne, aquatic resources project manager at Princeton Hydro, the company that conducted the survey.
Princeton Hydro is also leading the water quality study.
The study will also look at turbidity, which is a measure of how cloudy the water is due to the presence of particles. The more solids in the water, the murkier it seems and the higher the turbidity. Turbidity is considered a good measure of the quality of water.
Organizers say the $90,000 study funded by the William Penn Foundation will be able to bring attention to the river in a way that the usual monitoring doesn’t. On it’s website, the foundation says, “founded in 1945 by Otto and Phoebe Haas, is dedicated to improving the quality of life in the Greater Philadelphia region.”
Pennsylvania does have some monitoring stations in the river, and the Philadelphia water department does extensive testing, Hartshorne acknowledged. The data collected as part of this project will give a fuller understanding of the river.
“Our research shows that residents care about the river but are not confident whether it is clean or safe to use for recreational activity,” Hartshorne said in a news release. “So, we’ve designed a volunteer survey and scientific water quality assessment to document the ecological health of the Schuylkill River.
“By studying bacterial inputs and identifying hot spots for trash, we can communicate the status of the river, provide recommendations on areas of improvement, and ultimately, change the current public perception of the river.”
This project, led by Schuylkill River Greenways in Pottstown, is focused on the main stem of the river from Berks Nature in Reading to Bartram’s Garden in southwest Philadelphia. Partners include Berks Nature, Bartram’s Garden, The Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education, Stroud Water Research Center and Princeton Hydro.
Community scientists
The project partners are seeking volunteers to conduct 5-minute visual monitoring assessments with their cellphones.
Volunteers can simply record the trash accumulation or dumping points along a 100-foot section of the Schuylkill River via a form accessible from a cellphone: bit.ly/litterform.
“Trash is important to address when talking about the health of a waterway because it’s often the most visually obvious form of pollution,” said Chloe Wang, river programs coordinator at Bartram’s Garden in southwest Philadelphia. “Bacterial and chemical pollution are generally less directly observable, but when we see trash, it instantly informs our impression of a body of water.
“And, it can point to larger problems.
“For example, near Bartram’s Garden, a lot of trash washes into the river from combined sewer overflows, which also introduce harmful bacteria into the water. It will be interesting to see how the presence of trash differs along various stretches of the Schuylkill.”
No formal training is needed to conduct the assessment.
The goal is to document critical areas of trash accumulation or dumping points to guide management efforts to better deal with this pollution. The form also asks volunteers to submit a photo of the area and collects the GPS location. The data collected will be summarized and visualized by the project team.
“This is an opportunity for anyone with an interest in the Schuylkill River to spend time on the river and provide valuable feedback on the conditions,” David Bressler, project facilitator at Stroud Water Research Center, said in a news release. “Schuylkill River Greenways and its partners in this project are looking for motivated and dependable individuals to help them learn about the Schuylkill River and move in positive directions toward making the river more accessible to the community. Support from volunteers is very important and is greatly appreciated.”
Water quality stations
Hartshorne said water quality sampling and monitoring will be conducted over the next year at four river locations: Reading, Pottstown, Roxborough and Bartram’s Garden.
Berks Nature’s is on the Schuylkill at the Exeter Trailhead.
Schuylkill River Greenways’ is at Riverfront Park in Pottstown.
Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education’s sensor is along the Schuylkill in Roxborough, and Bartram’s Garden’s monitoring is at its park, said Sarah Crothers, education director of Schuylkill Greenways.
This scientific documentation of critical water quality parameters will be performed by partner group employees and long-term volunteers, who are trained in data collection and scientific methods.
Hartshorne said they will collect data on bacterial concentrations in the river using a combination of 3M Petrifilm kits and laboratory-based analytical measures. Also, Mayfly dataloggers will collect temperature, oxygen, pH and turbidity data.
Mayfly dataloggers are, according to Stroud Water Research in Avondale, Chester County, autonomous, low-cost, open-source sensor stations. They are tethered by cables to sensors underwater.
They were developed and deployed in an effort to reduce the cost of sensor-based monitoring of streams and soils. Since their development 11 years ago, the Stroud Center has shared the device with the broader research community, which has adopted it for a variety of applications across the U.S.
For the water quality monitoring, Princeton Hydro scientists will provide training to the partner nonprofit organizations’ staff and review the methods and protocols to assure the highest level of quality.
The long-term data collection effort is slated to begin this month and continue for about a year.
Researchers said the results of the assessment will allow them to determine potential hot spots related to nutrient and bacteria inputs and to understand the overall ecological health of the Schuylkill River.
Hartshorne said the target to release the results of the study is December 2021.
Tim Fenchel, deputy director of Schuylkill River Greenways, said a goal is to make the river meaningful to those who live near it.
“To fully achieve the river’s potential, we must help the public understand the current health status and what they can do to continue to improve its quality for this generation and generations to come,” Fenchel said in a news release.
