Too Much Resource, Too Few Biologists. An Approach to Prioritizing and Sampling Unassessed Waters

Second only to Alaska for the amount of waters within her borders, Pennsylvania is blessed with over 86,000 miles of flowing water and over 400 reservoirs.    Many of the 86,000 miles of flowing water are comprised of small, often unnamed, headwater streams. Until recently, these streams were not considered a high priority for biological assessment.  Population expansion into Pennsylvania’s rural areas as well as a recent boom in natural resource exploration and extraction within the Marcellus shale region has increased the urgency to document and properly classify these unsurveyd streams to insure their protection.  Although the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission’s 18 full time fisheries biologist within the Division of Fisheries Management have documented fish populations and properly classified for water quality protection 5,395 flowing waters within the Commonwealth since the mid 1970’s, there remains over 45,000 streams that have yet to have been surveyed.   It quickly became clear that the potential for water quality degradation was quickly outpacing our ability to properly classify and protect these resources.  The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission developed an approach to prioritize the sampling of these 45,000 streams and to involve university fisheries and biology departments to assist with resource assessment.  The approach provides students with real word experience while overcoming concerns of data management and integrity. Following a very successful pilot project in 2010 interest has expanded rapidly throughout the commonwealth with universities and conservancies stepping up and offering to support this effort with funding and in-kind services.