The Bushkill Creek flows in a southeastern direction from its source on the south flank of Blue Mountain to its confluence with the Delaware River in Easton, Pennsylvania. Much of the Bushkill Creek is classified as a High Quality Cold Water Fishery (HQ-CWF) by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, and brown trout are abundant in both the upper and lower Bushkill Creek. The lower Bushkill Creek is fragmented by seven small, historic 19th-century milldams (i.e., ≤ 5 m height) between Tatamy and Easton, Pennsylvania. Several dam removals and restoration of freshwater mussels were proposed as compensation for natural resource damages associated with a coal-ash slurry spill from PPL Martin’s Creek Electric Station. In August 2005, ~100 million gallons of coal ash slurry were released into the Delaware River, and PA and NJ filed for natural resource damages. A settlement was finally reached in July 2015 for $1.3 million. The agreement outlined the process for additional studies and environmental review and gave us a valuable opportunity for multidisciplinary research involving more than 12 years of pre-dam removal monitoring and risk assessment. After much planning and risk assessment, dam removals commenced in 2022. The dam in the photo below (#5) was removed in fall 2022, and two more dams were removed in 2023 (#1&3). Dams #2 and 4 are also slated for removal in the near future.  

Jacob Knopping ’16 and Dionne May ’15 collecting pre-dam removal monitoring data downstream from one of the dams along Bushkill Creek.

Read more about the specific projects related to Bushkill Creek restoration:
1. Dam removal monitoring and risk assessment
2. Freshwater mussel restoration