This award will allow our organizations to preserve and protect the environmentally sound conditions and repositories of healthy fish populations found in the headwaters of what is for much of its…

This award will allow our organizations to preserve and protect the environmentally sound conditions and repositories of healthy fish populations found in the headwaters of what is for much of its length, a mine degraded stream. The potential exists for habitat degradation of the high quality reaches of the upper moshannon creek watershed while restoration is underway farther downstream. Taking steps to prevent that habitat degradation is the purpose of this project which is being sought by the moshannon creek watershed association in partnership with the native fish coalition - pennsylvania under sponsorship of the clearfield county conservation district. IT will assess several threats to the upper watershed and lay the groundwork for addressing or removing those threats as future projects. These include study and assessment to inform a preliminary design for treatment of known mine discharge MC-fore, quantification of lesser studied discharge MC2, quantification of mine discharge MC3 and nearby large coal refuse pile, conceptual design for treatment for MC3, study of the impact of mine drainage discharges to an unnamed headwaters tributary, and searching for and studying any previously unidentified mine drainage sources in the immediate area which may have been missed. The keystone deliverable from this project will be the design and permitting for the future construction of a treatment system to address the MC-fore discharge, which poses a direct threat to the class a headwaters of moshannon creek. The project will also result in a final report that will assess the impacts and drive the prioritization of addressing the other mine discharges being studied, including MC2, MC3, those on the unnanmed headwaters tributary, and any others that may be uncovered. As part of that report, a conceptual treatment plan will be developed for the MC3, though any future construction to address that discharge will have to await the ultimate disposition of the refuse pile.