If you’ve ever wondered how good the water quality is in streams in your community, the Department of Environmental Protection has a tool that lets you to find out.

The Integrated Water Quality Report Viewer is a GIS-based tool that shows streams with impaired water quality and why they are impaired, based on the 2016 Water Quality Monitoring and Assessment Report.

Overall, 66,100 miles of the 86,000 miles of streams in Pennsylvania meet water quality standards, but it also means 19,900 miles do not.

The number and concentration of streams with impaired water quality varies widely from county to county and community to community as do the reasons for that impairment.

Some of the most common pollutant sources are abandoned mine drainage, agriculture runoff, and urban stormwater runoff.
 

What You Can Do

With lots of work left to be done to cleanup our rivers and streams statewide, find out water quality conditions where you live, then send a copy of the map or visit your local House and Senate member and ask them how they plan to help clean them up.

Click Here for the interactive map of waterways and impairments can be found. This mapping tool can identify individual stream/river segments and any applicable impairments and their causes.

(Map: Adams County, the first county, alphabetically, in Pennsylvania. Red means impaired.)

How You Can Help

Want To Find A Watershed Group Near You? Try The PA Land Trust Assn. Watershed Association Finder

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Related Story:

EPA Approves Report Showing 19,900 Miles Of Streams, Rivers Are Polluted In Pennsylvania

[Posted: July 6, 2018]

7/9/2018