Lower Merion Conservancy

Help Local Streams

7 Great Ways to Help Local Streams

1. Leave a natural area next to the stream.
If you live along a local stream, leave a natural forest corridor of 10-25 yards alongside the stream bed. This shades the stream, decreases water temperature, filters runoff of sediment, and provides food for EPT insects. If you mow grass right to the stream’s edge, fertilizers and even pesticides can easily flow into the stream during a rainfall. If you currently own a section of stream, planting trees along the banks will provide immediate and measurable relief to the stream’s ecology.

2. Properly dispose of swimming pool water.
Every year without fail, a fishkill occurs in Mill Creek or another area stream when a pool company, either knowingly or inadvertently, drains a pool-full of noxious chemicals into a storm drain. Your swimming pool company should contact Lower Merion Township for the municipality’s regulations concerning pool companies, and your company should dispose of its chemicals by a method that does not cause the death of living things in local streams. Causing a fishkill, by the way, can result in you or your pool company receiving a fine from one or more state agencies.

3. Report pollution incidents.
When you see something unusual in the creek, whether a strange color or a fishkill, call the Lower Merion Township/Narberth Borough police. The police have been trained in rapidly responding to the problem, and alerting proper authorities, like the state DEP or Fish and Game Commission. The police need as detailed a description of the incident as you can provide. And remember: the sooner the authorities find out, the sooner they can remedy the problem.

4. Practice chemical-free lawn and garden care.
Today, there are many ways to grow a gorgeous garden or lush lawn with little or no fertilizers or pesticides. Especially if you live alongside Mill Creek or its tributaries, keeping chemicals off the lawn keeps chemicals out of the stream.

5. Don't dump into storm sewers or drains.
Any storm drain on any road directs runoff from rain into the nearest stream. Litter, paint, concrete, gasoline and petrochemicals are all dumped into storm drains, and all jeopardize the health of the stream’s inhabitants. Under any condition, never deposit anything in storm drains—they do not connect to the sewer system, and are not treated before reaching the stream.

6. Limit your use of salt to melt snow.
A little bit of salt can go a very long way, and many of us apply much more salt than is truly needed for de-icing a sidewalk or driveway. Please be conservative— melted waters carry that salt down storm drains, and into creeks—and consider using limited quantities of a benign substance like sand.

7. Volunteer at the Lower Merion Conservancy.
We are an active environmental organization dedicated to preserving the nature of Lower Merion's open space, historic resources and watersheds, and work with a network of volunteers that conduct both chemical testing and/or biological counting programs. Learn how the creek is flowing by volunteering as a StreamKeeper. E-mail Conservation Coordinator Patty Thompson to learn more!

Updated: 1/14/2008 © 2010Lower Merion Conservancy. All rights reserved.

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