More Pa. streams to be tagged for extra protections

Over 200 miles’ worth of water to be relabeled

Forty-one streams, creeks, brooks and runs — some so small they don’t have names — are finally flowing toward the more stringent water quality protections that will come with their reclassification as “High Quality — Cold Water Fisheries.”

More than five years after they were first published in the Pennsylvania Bulletin, the proposed redesignations covering 222 miles’ worth of waterways in 21 Pennsylvania counties were sent by the Environmental Quality Board last month to state Senate and House environmental committees and the Independent Regulatory Review Commission for final review and approval.

The IRRC has scheduled final action on the redesignations at its meeting April 15.

Once approved, the stretches of Mosquito Creek, a tributary of the West Branch of the Susquehanna River in Lycoming County; Salt Lick Run, a tributary of Beech Creek in Centre County; Fireline Creek, a tributary of the Lehigh River in Carbon County; and dozens more will join the 21,000 miles of “HQ” waterways in the commonwealth already receiving enhanced protections against degradation from pollution.

Greg Malaska, president of the 15,000-member Pennsylvania Chapter of Trout Unlimited, knows his way around the pristine coldwater brook trout streams of the Pocono Mountains near his home in Jim Thorpe, Carbon County, and knows too the benefits of, and pressures on, the state’s water resources.

Mr. Malaska’s comment letter on the proposed redesignations cites the importance of protecting the state’s native brook trout fishery for the state’s 1.3 million anglers and its $29 billion outdoor recreation economy, and also notes the wider benefits of preserving water quality for downstream water users such as farmers and industry, and the 175,000 people that draw drinking water from the 41 streams.

“In Pennsylvania, we have the most diverse trout fishing in America, and we also have 13 million people,” he said this month. “The more ways that we can find to protect the state’s important water