This post will discuss work performed in 2024 in the headwaters section of Moshannon Creek, which we will define as Moshannon Creek upstream of its crossing with Hale Road. This section has the best water quality of any stretch of the main stem, and it sees the first significant impacts from acid mine drainage (AMD). A lot of work is continuing into 2025 in this stretch. MCWA, the Native Fish Coalition Pennsylvania Chapter, and the Clearfield County Conservation District applied for and were awarded an Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture Grant where the EBTJV would fund a treatment system design for the MC-Fore mine discharge, the first significant AMD that Moshannon sees as it flows downstream, and the grant seeking partners would perform a detailed evaluation of conditions in the watershed upstream of the confluence of Moshannon Creek and Roup Run. Intensive field work for this project has been underway for several years, and much of the field work was completed in 2024. Hedin Environmental began the treatment system design in the fall of 2024. In the spring of 2025, we anticipate completing the final report for the project. Spinning out of the headwaters survey work, the PA DEP's Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation (BAMR) is performing development work for reclaiming a flooded strip mine cut in the headwaters and reclaiming a coal refuse pile located in the headwaters along about 500 feet of the Clearfield County side of the stream, where it is a Class A trout stream. MCWA has previously worked with the property owner and a coal refuse power generation firm to determine that most of this coal refuse pile is not rich enough to be used as a fuel source, preventing that method of disposal being an option. Water treatment of at least two AMD sources is likely to be a follow up project after the coal refuse and strip mine cut reclamation are completed. MCWA and the NFC-PA volunteers did extensive scouting of the headwaters and we believe we have found the most important AMD sources in the headwaters. A year's worth of water sampling of those sources was completed in 2024. That data has been shared with BAMR and will be shared in the final report for the EBTJV grant, which will be completed in 2025. As part of the ecological evaluation of the headwaters, MCWA partnered with the Juniata Valley Audubon Society to perform a bird survey of three miles of the headwaters of Moshannon Creek. This project was done in the spring over three years and was completed in June of 2024. The results of this survey work will be included in the final report for the EBTJV grant. As Moshannon flows downstream in the headwaters, it reaches its confluence with Roup Run. A series of three mine discharges on the Centre County side of the stream that flow into the bottom end of Roup Run or into Moshannon just downstream of Roup Run, provide the first large impacts to Moshannon from the Centre County side of the stream. MCWA has partnered with BAMR to do monthly water sampling of those discharges and several in stream locations. MCWA constructed the weirs for flow measurement, a crew from BAMR installed them after our planned work day was cancelled by a tropical storm, and MCWA has been doing monthly sampling of those locations that will continue into the summer of 2025, with the PA DEP performing the laboratory processing of those samples. This post is only describing a portion of the work underway in the watershed. The projects will keep getting bigger as we move downstream in subsequent posts. Click on each photo to learn more.