A plea for watershed scale management of fisheries in the central Appalachian coalfields

The extent to which fossil fuel extraction and use have negatively impacted fisheries resources in the central Appalachians cannot be overstated.  The legacy of acid mine drainage and acid precipitation has impacted tens of thousands of stream miles in WV, PA, MD, and VA.  Compounding this problem is the acceleration of impacts associated with large scale surface mining and natural gas drilling.  We will present results on studies of fish and invertebrate assemblages that suggest: 1- numerous localized impacts within mined watersheds can lead to regional scale “deflation” of fisheries resources; and 2- impacts associated with mineral extraction interact with other activities, such as development, to produce highly impaired conditions at the watershed scale.  As a consequence, we strongly encourage watershed scale management of fisheries resources rather than piecemeal management that focuses on individual stressors at the stream segment scale.  Such an approach would set fisheries objectives at the 10-digit HUC watershed scale and integrate restoration and permitting decisions in order to meet objectives at this scale. We demonstrate applications of this approach to the restoration of fisheries resources in the upper Monongahela River basin and in Pigeon Creek, a tributary of the Tug Fork in southern West Virginia.