I have received a good bit of feedback about the smallmouth bass situation and the concern about the river. There is another side to this whole mess and it is that the river is by no means dead. The North Branch is thriving and the West Branch holds trophy smallmouth that will rival smallmouth anywhere. Of course we want to work on the situation, figure out why reproduction is down, and take action.
Since water quality is getting the limelight as the problem, I got a real shocker when I received a letter from a reader about the DEP permitting a mining company to dump "treated" water in the West Branch at Williamsport. To quote the letter: "The DEP (Department of Environmental Protection)issued a permit to TerrAqua Resource Management to dump 400,000 gallons of treated gas well drilling wastewater into the river at Watertower Square in Williamsport."
I had read a few months ago that they were applying for a permit. At the bottom of the letter was a statement by Robert Yowell, DEP Northcentral Regional Director. He states, "The department received nearly 200 public comments regarding this permit application and have responded to and addressed all relevant questions and concerns raised in those comments."
At this point, the frac mining and water treatment has been going off without a hitch. I am going to try to find out just how well the water is treated that is released into the river. My knee jerk reaction to all of this is you have got to be kidding. As if we don't have enough problems, we are going to dump more treated water into the river. Oh, it's only 400,000 gallons a day. That's not much really. But what about down the road when there are thousands more wells and more water treatment facilities dumping more treated water. I kinda get this old, "we got our foot in the door" feeling about it. Nothing is going to stop the frac mining, the money is too big. What we hope is that DEP or whoever keeps an eye on things is on top of their game. It's hard to hide a fish kill.
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Before this snow came, I was cleaning out my truck after a day at the pheasant farm. I found a ringneck tail feather from the hunt, and just for kicks and to irritate my wife, I stuck it in the ground in our front yard. After the first blast of snow, I plowed our lane and pushed snow piles into the yard. When I was finished, I walked back to the house and lo and behold the feather was still sticking in the ground. I had plowed right over it and it still stood tall. I was amazed. Next snowstorm, same deal. Plowed right over it, pushing big piles this time. It is still standing straight up. I don't have a clue why. It should be flattened and in the snow pile. I would like to think that the resilience of that feather means something, I'm just not sure what.
I believe we still have a great river. It will bounce back as long as we let it.
n Ken Maurer, of Herndon, is a licensed fishing guide and a regular contributor to the outdoors pages. E-mail comments to kenrose@tds.net.
