Since 2011, LSCWA has continued to support the Alliance for Aquatic Resource Monitoring (ALLARM) testing in Little Sewickley Creek. This program was initiated and financed by Dickenson College to monitor streams in areas that could be affected by shale gas drilling.
In 2012, LSCWA’s volunteer monitors, students from Quaker Valley High School, began to collect ALLARM baseline stream data. Students from Sewickley Academy later joined in this project. Under a grant from LSCWA, April Claus, Director of Environmental Education at the Fern Hollow Nature Center, provides student supervision, storage and re-calibration of equipment for this specialized monitoring.
In the first baseline year, data was collected twice per month at 5 different site and thereafter once per month. The parameters on Little Sewickley creek measured are TDS (total dissolved solids), specific conductivity, surrogate stream flow and water temperature.
The data are then incorporated into the college’s master database. At present, DEP only accepts data from ALLARM testing groups as a means to identify changes in the stream that could signify potential problems from shale gas drilling.