PARENT SESSION
Oral Session # 97: Restoration Ecology II: Rivers and Forests.
Presiding: J Weishampel
Friday, August 8. 8:30 AM to 12:00 PM, SITCC Meeting Room 203.

Acid mine drainage effects on stream ecosystem health in West Virginia.

Simmons, Jeffrey ^*,1, Lawrence, Erin¹, Jones, Thomas², ¹ West Virginia Wesleyan College, Buckhannon, WV² Marshall University, Huntington, WV

ABSTRACT- Acid mine drainage (AMD) from coal mining affects approximately 6,500 miles of streams in the Appalachian region. Raw or untreated AMD is highly acidic and contains elevated concentrations of Fe, Mn, Al and other heavy metals. Currently much of the AMD discharged from active mining operations is first treated to raise the pH and reduce concentrations of heavy metals. The effects of raw AMD on biotic diversity and leaf decomposition have been studied but impacts of treated AMD on streams has been overlooked. Our objective was to determine if discharges of treated AMD affected the health of stream ecosystems. We used an index of biological diversity as well as two measures of ecosystem function to assess ecosystem health. Four streams from each of three categories were selected randomly from a GIS database of West Virginia stream reaches. AMD streams had inputs of untreated acid mine drainage, Treated Streams had inputs of treated AMD and Reference streams had no inputs of acid mine drainage. From each stream water samples were collected on three dates for chemical analysis. Periphyton growth on ceramic tiles and benthic macroinvertebrate diversity was measured in each stream. Leaf decomposition bags were incubated for six weeks in Reference and Treated streams. Chemical analysis of stream water verified that the streams were placed in the correct category. Periphyton growth was significantly reduced in AMD streams (p<0.05), however Treated streams were no different from Reference streams. In terms of macroinvertebrates AMD streams had significantly fewer taxa, lower diversity index and fewer EPT taxa than the other stream types (p<0.05). Treated streams had less than half the number of taxa compared to Reference streams (p<0.05). Leaf decomposition was significantly slower in Treated streams than in Reference streams (p<0.05). Thus, although treated AMD is much less toxic than raw AMD, it still has substantial impacts on species diversity and leaf decomposition thereby reducing ecosystem health.

Key words: benthic macroinvertebrates, acid mine drainage, periphyton, leaf decomposition