Coursing Through Gasland

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Heavy industrialization by the oil and gas industry—even if tucked away from the road—can negatively impact the rich ecological array of waterways and forests in the Towanda Creek watershed. Our fieldwork in the watershed is an effort to explore these impacts, where they are visible from public roadways. Using FracTracker’s mobile app, on May 20, 2022, 5 teams of volunteers drove the backroads in the Towanda Creek watershed documenting the impacts of well pads, pipeline cuts, and other associated infrastructure. This Atlas represents both the observations we made that day, and data we collected from public sources that help to illustrate the often out-of-sight resource uses in the Towanda Creek watershed.

The Towanda Creek drainage is dominated by forest cover, with 78% of the watershed in deciduous (67%), mixed (9.5%), or coniferous forest (1.2%), and an additional 8% as transitional/ scrub vegetation. The more heavily forested areas of the watershed occur south of Towanda Creek, which features far more steeply-sloped terrain than the portion of the watershed to the north of the creek.

The widespread forestlands in the southwestern portion of the Towanda watershed, with their continuous canopy cover, provide natural water filtering for the many streams there, as well as ample shade to the stream corridors. Schrader Creek and Sugar Run, as well as many of their tributaries, rate as exceptional quality streams and are popular trout fishing locations.

There are 567 miles of designated streams in the watershed. Of these, there are:

• 373 miles cold water fishery

• 5.13 miles warm water fishery

• 85.6 miles exceptional value streams

• 78.3 miles high quality streams

• 24.95 miles trout-stocking streams

The watershed also contains a diverse mosaic of wetlands. In the Towanda Creek watershed there are 808 freshwater emergent wetlands, 2119 forested shrub wetlands, and nearly 1700 wetlands adjacent to streams and rivers, in addition to hundreds of ponds and lakes.

This project investigates how fracking has significantly altered the landscape of the Towanda Creek watershed, as expsansive infrastructure stretches across the land, creating numerous impacts to this important watershed.

FracTracker Alliance would like to thank the Community Foundation for the Alleghenies for their generous support, which made the Towanda Creek watershed project possible. We would also like to thank all of the volunteers who accompanied us in the field, including Melissa Ostroff of Earthworks for contributing OGI / infrared imagery and footage, pilot David Harnitchek with LightHawk for providing aerial support for the project, Sarah Corcoran from Sierra Club, Kelly Finley from Bucknell University, Ben Finley, Diana Dakey, Paul Dakey, Paul Otruba and Victor Otruba for their time and contributions.