The Conestoga River flows through Lancaster Township in this file photo.
The Conestoga River and its feeder streams, which meander across most of Lancaster County, are far from being fishable and swimmable as required by the federal Clean Water Act, according to the findings of a new state study.
Although both activities take place in the river, about 330 miles of waterways in the Conestoga River watershed remain on a federal list of "impaired" streams, and Pennsylvania is under the gun to improve them.
That's why the state hired the Susquehanna River Basin Commission in 2005 to do a five-year pollution assessment on the watershed and to develop a "watershed budget" that sets the amount of pollution the river and dozens of streams can hold and still have acceptable water quality.
An interim report released by the SRBC this week indicates the Conestoga and many tributaries will need a significant cleanup to satisfy minimum requirements of the federal Clean Water Act.
The report, which only studied the drainage area's makeup in low-water conditions, found excessive nutrients flowing into streams mostly from wastewater treatment plants and industrial discharges.
"In the Conestoga River watershed, there are more than 50 point-source nutrient dischargers permitted to discharge more than 48 million gallons per day," the report noted.
So-called nonpoint sources, such as storm runoff from farms, construction projects and housing developments also are main contributors to the pollution and may, in fact, be the major source when water quality is assessed in normal and high-flow periods, the study indicated.
The watershed, which includes all but the western part of Lancaster County and parts of Berks, Lebanon and Chester counties, has one of the highest densities of cows in Pennsylvania, according to the study.
Each day, the Conestoga flushes nearly 30,000 pounds of nitrogen and 1,900 pounds of phosphorus into the Susquehanna River, the study noted.
Excessive nutrients create algae blooms, rob water of oxygen and affect fish and aquatic life.
The Conestoga and its huge load of nutrients has long been an obstacle in the ongoing cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay. The Conestoga River flows into the Susquehanna River, which provides the bay with nearly half of its fresh water.
In the interim study of the Conestoga, the Lititz Run watershed is singled out for having the highest concentration of nutrients that flow into the Conestoga River.
The study doesn't point a finger at sewage plants or runoff, but notes that Warwick Township, which surrouds Lititz, between 1994 and 2002 had the highest amount of acreage converted into development in the county.
CONESTOGA RIVER WATERSHED CLEANUP • About 300 miles of streams in watershed on federal polluted list. • Lititz Run has highest concentration of nutrient pollution. • Wastewater plants and industrial discharges main sources of pollutants.
The kind of pollution assessment and budget under way for the Conestoga watershed is taking place all over Pennsylvania.
So far, 6,000 miles of 15,800 miles of impaired streams in the state have new pollution budgets, called total maximum daily loads, or TMDLs.
"We will be doing them (setting the budgets) for quite some time," said Glenn Rider, the state Department of Environmental Protection's environmental program manager in the Bureau of Wastewater Management.
Establishing the Conestoga River TMDL is several years away.
The new pollution limits stem from a lawsuit brought by environmental groups in 1996 against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for not enforcing the Clean Water Act's requirement for clean streams.
In 1997, DEP agreed to determine the pollution budgets in Pennsylvania. Other states made similar commitments.
The EPA has not been enforcing the pollution limits because Pennsylvania made a commitment in 2000 to reduce nutrients as part of the Chesapeake Bay cleanup. But the state has admitted it won't meet those nutrient-reduction goals and environmental groups have been pushing the EPA to enforce the tougher standards in 2010.
Nine streams in the Conestoga watershed already have TMDLs established and approved by the EPA, including one for Lititz Run.
Once a polluted waterway has a TMDL, it becomes a priority for funding. Cleanup measures typically include upgrades of sewage plants and better conservation on farms.
Asked what might have to be done to bring the Conestoga River into compliance, Rider said this morning, "It's too early to tell."
However, he speculated a mixture of farm-related measures and sewage treatment would be necessary.
Staff writer Ad Crable can be reached at acrable@LNPnews.com or 481-6029.
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