Winter in White Clay Watershed

It's another snowy day in the White Clay Creek watershed. Spring is (hopefully) just around the corner, but here are some fun facts about snow to hold you over until the weather warms up.

• An average snowflake is made up of more than 180 billion water molecules.
• Did you know there's a snow phobia? It's called chiophobia, and it's the intense fear of snow.
• There's a connection between snow and snacks! People tend to buy more cakes, cookies, and candies than any other food when a blizzard is on the forecast.
• The highest snowfall ever recorded in the U.S. in one year was 31.3 meters (102 feet) in Mount Rainier, Washington between February 1971 and February 1972.
• The most snow in one day in the U.S. was 76 inches in Silver Lake, Colorado in 1921. That's more than 6 feet falling from the sky in a single day!

Want to know how this winter stacks up to other winters throughout history? Thus far, this winter is in the top 5 snowiest winters in the White Clay Creek (the winter of 2010 is #1). As of February 17th, total snowfall at the New Castle County Airport was 49.4 inches. That's a lot of snow! So until spring returns, get out and enjoy a snowy White Clay winter day!

Knowing your Aquatic Neighbors: Leeches and Stoneflies and Snails, Oh My!

How can you know when a stream is healthy or not? When it comes to determining water quality, the things that are living in the water are a major clue!

When people think of healthy streams, they often think of fish, turtles, and other large aquatic life. It’s true that these animals can indicate a healthy stream. But sometimes, even smaller animals can help paint a larger picture. Insects, and other macroinvertebrates (animals without a backbone that you can see without the help of a microscope, “macros” for short), are among the best indicators of stream health. According to Stroud Water Research Center, macros “are advantageous in evaluating water quality because they have relatively diverse assemblages (100-200 species) and as a group are a sensitive measure of environmental change and stress.” This means that the bugs and other macros living in a stream tell us different things about that stream.

To complete a survey of macros living in a stream, scientists may take a large net, known as a kick net, out into the center of the stream near a riffle (a relatively shallow, rocky area of a stream where water flows at a higher speed). They then stir up the stream bed above the net by moving and rubbing down rocks and using their feet to kick up sediments at the bottom of the stream. This washes any organisms living in or on the stream bed into the net. Tiny snails, leeches, worms, dragonflies, and crayfish are just some of the kinds of macros that scientists look for when they pull that net out of the water for examination.

Here are some of the major kinds of macros and what their presence indicates:

• Mayflies, caddisflies, and stoneflies: These organisms and their larvae have a very low tolerance for contamination, which means that they need clean, unpolluted waters. Where they’re found, a stream is usually in healthy shape.
• Dragonflies, crayfish, and clams: These organisms and their larvae can handle moderate amounts of contamination. They can be found in mildly polluted streams where the more sensitive macros can’t survive. However, they’re not totally resistant, and have difficulty surviving in waters that are heavily polluted.
• Lunged snails, aquatic worms, and leeches: These organisms and their larvae can handle the polluted streams where few other creatures can survive. When these animals represent the majority (or in some cases, the entirety) of the macro population of a stream, chances are that stream is highly degraded and in need of help.

For images of macroinvertebrates like these (and many more), click here to check out Stroud Water Research Center’s extensive photo gallery.

Macros are fantastic indicators of water quality, but they aren’t the only benchmark of water quality. Bacteria are living there too! Bacteria are microscopic living organisms (microbes), most of which are perfectly normal and healthy for a stream. Some bacteria, like enterococcus and E. coli (a type of fecal coliform), can make people sick if they have contact with the water. These strains of bacteria come from human and animal waste, and cause drops in water quality when that waste flows into a stream. This contamination can be the result of leaking septic tanks or cracked sewer pipes, or it could be from animals (like livestock, dogs, or wildlife) when their waste is washed into the stream. There are many water quality monitoring stations throughout the watershed and the larger Christina Basin that test streams for contaminants like bacteria, because bacterial pollution can be dangerous to people. Typically, if bacteria levels are high, public health officials recommend that you don’t swim in, boat on, or wade into a stream since coming into close contact with that water might make you ill.

So what do the things living in the waters of the White Clay tell us about how the watershed is doing? According to Stroud Water Research Center, a combined assessment of macros in the White Clay tells us that of the 18 sites monitored between 1994 and 2008, only one (the headwaters of the East Branch) was ranked as “good.” Eight were ranked as “fair,” and nine were ranked as “poor.” Typically, the headwater streams tended to have the macros that indicate higher water quality, while the macros present at downstream sites indicated more pollution and lower overall water quality. For more information on that assessment, click here.

Bacterial data for the White Clay is measured differently across state lines. In Pennsylvania, the State Department of Environmental Protection has a standard for E. coli and fecal coliform, while the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control has set forth a water quality standard for enterococcus. Preliminary data collected by volunteers in the Pennsylvania portion of the watershed suggests that several of the ten sites sampled did not meet the water quality standard for bacteria. In the Delaware portion of the watershed, data collected by the Delaware Nature Society in the same year indicated that headwater and smaller streams did not meet the water quality standard while the main stem of the White Clay Creek did. This suggests that the levels of bacteria are diluted as water moves from smaller streams to larger streams. This may be good news for the main stem of the Creek, but data has also shown that during storm events, bacteria levels in even the largest streams in the watershed can spike.

Whether good or bad, what’s living in our streams can tell us a lot about the health of our watershed and how we care for the land that drains to the White Clay Creek.  This knowledge is the first step toward helping our streams become healthier. For citizens in the White Clay Valley, this could mean big things like installing rain gardens to catch stormwater runoff or reducing impervious cover by replacing asphalt with porous pavement. It could also mean smaller things, like making sure that your septic tank is properly maintained, cleaning up after your dog while you’re out on a walk, or reducing the size of your lawn. Every little bit helps when it comes to protecting our water, and ensuring that it will be a healthy for all living things for years to come.

For more information on stream assessments and determining water quality, click here.

Green Really Is Green: Environmental Economics

Everyone knows that money doesn't grow on trees. But did you know that trees do have value that can help you keep money in your pocket? Natural resources provide us with environmental goods, services, and opportunities that have real economic value. While there are some different opinions over putting a dollar amount on our natural resources, it can be an important educational tool for promoting conservation. Many people don’t realize that the environment is providing us with free services that we would otherwise have to pay for ourselves.

Coming up with dollar values for environmental goods and services is no easy task, and there are many different techniques that can be used. They include: surveying people to find out what they would be willing to pay to protect a natural resource (like donating money to protect the Florida Everglades); calculating the cost of replacing an environmental service if it were lost (like water filtration from a wetland if it were developed); assessing the commercial value of sporting good industries that revolve around environmental resources (like bird watching, hunting, fishing, hiking, and mountain biking); just to name a few.

The Water Resources Agency at the University of Delaware Institute for Public Administration recently released a report on the economic value of the White Clay Creek Wild and Scenic River watershed. Depending on the valuation technique administered,

“The water, natural resources, and ecosystems of the White Clay Creek watershed contribute an economic value of $165 million to $1 billion annually to the economies of Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland.” 

Specifically, this report looked at three different ways to measure environmental economic contributions: direct economic values, calculated ecosystem goods and service values, and jobs and wages values.

The first technique, direct environmental values, measures the economic activity associated with things like water supply, recreation, and wildlife. For example, how much money is generated through water utility bills each year, or how much money do people spend on bird and wildlife watching in the White Clay Creek? The answers might surprise you. Those two dollar values alone total more than $95 million per year in the White Clay Creek. All of the components combined (water supply and quality, fish and wildlife, recreation, agriculture, forests, and public parks) are estimated to generate $520 million annually.

The second technique, calculated ecosystem goods and services values, are a little more difficult to estimate but are equally as powerful. The White Clay Creek watershed provides our community with certain environmental goods and services that we would otherwise have to pay to replace. For example, did you know that a conservative estimate of the value of a freshwater wetland is roughly $13,600 per acre per year? That means that each year, a single acre of wetlands provides more than $13,000 worth of goods and services that include water filtration, water storage to reduce flooding, natural habitat for birds and fish, and nutrient removal from suburban and agricultural fertilizer use. Wetlands aren’t the only natural features to provide such benefits. Farmland, forests, open water, and even urban areas benefit society economically in a variety of different ways. Combined, all ecosystem goods and services in the White Clay Creek are valued at more than $165 million per year.

Finally, the third valuation technique, jobs and wages, draws a link between nature and the economy by counting the number of jobs within the watershed that are related to the environment. Each time you rent a canoe, chat with a state park ranger, have a glass of wine or beer or even visit this website, the person on the other end of the interaction has a job (either directly or indirectly) because of the environment. Environmental industries within the White Clay Creek watershed (like eco-tourism, agriculture, fisheries, recreation, environmental nonprofits, and more) directly and indirectly employ about 25,000 people and provide more than $1 billion in annual wages.

While these dollar values are estimates, they provide simple but compelling proof that, in many ways, our economy and the environment are connected. Protecting natural resources in areas like the White Clay Creek watershed makes both environmental and financial cents. Though these dollar figures don’t tell the complete story of the White Clay Creek, it does confirm what many people already know: this is an incredibly invaluable watershed!

For more information on the University of Delaware Water Resources Agency's reports on environmental values, click here.