Water quality in Adams County is a broad topic. We’re going to focus on stream health. One approach is the pollution Adams County sends to Chesapeake Bay. These pollutants are defined as excess nitrates and phosphates and sediment. These pollutants not only affect the Bay, they can degrade the water quality in our local streams. As the concentration of these pollutants increase, the life cycle of aquatic insects is impacted, affecting the whole food chain, from fish that feed on the insects, to predators of the fish, which include mink, otters, herons, kingfishers, ospreys, bald eagles, and humans. Fortunately, it is generally accepted that water quality in our streams, and in the Chesapeake Bay has improved over the last two decades. The Watershed Alliance of Adams County (WAAC) tests eight of our local streams for five different parameters, including nitrates and phosphates. The test results can be found on the WAAC website, adamswatersheds.org.
Another pollutant found in our streams is excess road salt. WAAC has participated in studies of salt in our steams through a program called Salt Watch, run by the Stroud Water Research Center (SWRC) and coordinated by the Penn State Master Watershed Steward program. The study, ran in the Fall of 2025 can be found, by googling Stroudt Water Reseach Center. The results from this study for Adams County shows 8 locations were “good”, 8 locations were “less good”, and 4 locations were “OK, but not good”. Complete results can be found on the SWRC website. It is important to note that the study was run in October of 2025, long before any salt had been applied for snowy or icy conditions. The significance of this is the salt concentrations in our streams came from our groundwater, which is the source of water in our streams between rain events. This is called base flow.
Excessive nitrates, phosphates, and salt are just a few of the potential pollutants that could significantly impact the water quality in our streams. The list of potential pollutants is very extensive, things like PFA’s (forever chemicals) microplastics, toxins of all sorts, petroleum products, and the list goes on. Testing our streams for all the potential pollutants is not feasible given the resources required to do that. There is a way to get a very good read on stream quality mentioned at the beginning of this article, and that is to monitor the aquatic food chain in the stream. This is done through macroinvertebrate sampling. Macroinvertebrates (macros) are the nymph and larvae stages of aquatic insects. By analyzing the numbers and types of macros found in a stream, you can determine the health, and therefore the water quality, of a stream.
The Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin (ICPRB) has recently published a report titled “Stream Health in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed”. The method used to determine stream health was macroinvertebrate sampling, as described above. The report can be accessed on the ICPRB website. The conclusion of the report states that “the Chesapeake Bay watershed shows a slight improvement in recent years but a strong positive trend over the past two decades.”
The report is welcome news for everyone involved with improving the water quality in the Chesapeake watershed. That includes us, and you, if you’re part of the solution by following pollution prevention guidelines frequently published in the WAAC Enews. Thank you.
The WAAC Annual meeting will be held on April 16, at the Ag Center at 7pm at the Adams County Agricultural and Natural Resources Center at 670 Old Harrisburg Rd, Gettysburg, PA. Our featured speaker will be Dr. Claire Buchanan, of the ICPRB. She will present an overview of the report discussed above and how we’re doing locally with our water quality. This promises to be an interesting evening. The public is invited.