Hoses in creeks

KeithS

KeithS

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Jul 18, 2010
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I was having a very frustrating time this morning on a local creek. Not a sunnie, bluegill or rock bass to be seen. I kept working my way upstream and I noticed a hose dropping own the bank. I climbed up and found a hose attached to a stake with a coupler on the inlet end. This was o private property, but being 7AM Sunday, no one was around. I got back in the creek and headed upstream where I began to catch big rock bass, large sunnies and a couple of beautiful smallmouth in the 10-12 inch range.
I'm convinced the hose is for backwashing a pool, putting chlorine in the stream and killing whatever biomass WOULD BE downstream.
What are your thoughts,? I think I need to call the DCNR.
 
Nope, call the PF&BC and The DEP to investigate.
 
my guess its for drawing water. Mo's suggestion would clear it up either way.
 
I emailed PFBC. We'll see what happens.
 
I've seen hoses like that in two different streams. Both appeared to just be for drawing water. Ironically in both cases they were for small cabins on state forest land, although several counties apart. They didn't seem to really be doing any harm as the fishing was more or less the same both above and below the hoses. My guess is this happens quite a bit in the backwoods of PA. I'm pretty sure it's illegal to draw water like that, but I didn't report either case...can anyone verify that?

Your case may be very different however...neither of these cabins had a pool on their property!
 
Swattie87 wrote:
I've seen hoses like that in two different streams. Both appeared to just be for drawing water. Ironically in both cases they were for small cabins on state forest land, although several counties apart. They didn't seem to really be doing any harm as the fishing was more or less the same both above and below the hoses. My guess is this happens quite a bit in the backwoods of PA. I'm pretty sure it's illegal to draw water like that, but I didn't report either case...can anyone verify that?

Your case may be very different however...neither of these cabins had a pool on their property!
Click to expand...

Does anyone know what are the regs for withdrawing water from streams, particularly CWF rated streams? At least half a dozen times this year, I've passed a stream with a truck or van and trailer pulled along side it, with about six to eight plastic drums. There's a guy standing there, presumably filling the drums with water from the stream (or perhaps he's filling the stream with something from the drums?)..
 
Reported. CWO will check it out.
 
WCO called last night while he was arriving at the location. They're not messing around. He says they
ll keep me posted.
 
salmonoid wrote:
Swattie87 wrote:
I've seen hoses like that in two different streams. Both appeared to just be for drawing water. Ironically in both cases they were for small cabins on state forest land, although several counties apart. They didn't seem to really be doing any harm as the fishing was more or less the same both above and below the hoses. My guess is this happens quite a bit in the backwoods of PA. I'm pretty sure it's illegal to draw water like that, but I didn't report either case...can anyone verify that?

Your case may be very different however...neither of these cabins had a pool on their property!
Click to expand...

Does anyone know what are the regs for withdrawing water from streams, particularly CWF rated streams? At least half a dozen times this year, I've passed a stream with a truck or van and trailer pulled along side it, with about six to eight plastic drums. There's a guy standing there, presumably filling the drums with water from the stream (or perhaps he's filling the stream with something from the drums?)..
Click to expand...

From what I can find it appears you can withdraw up to 10,000 gal a day without a permit.
 
10,000 gallons?!? you could fill a typical above ground pool with that volume. Sheesh, talk about the inefficiency/ignorance of some laws.
 
10,000 gal per day is only .015 cubic feet per second of stream flow. This would be a minor withdrawal on most Pa streams relative to average daily flow.
 
Thanks, Mike.
 
Certainly, it seems almost negligible when you perform the calculation over 24 hours(like a hose for a cabin would), but removing 1336.89 cubic feet of water from a stream in an hour or two for commercial purposes is the scenario i was talking about.
 
10,000 seems like a lot, but is it?.

For reference purposes. My 27' round above ground pool holds about 1700 gallons. I filled it in probably about 24 hours from my well using a garden hose.

Elapsed time was closer to day and a half, but the hose was off at night.

OK, for awhile I was using two garden hoses ... until the well went dry. But for most of the time is was one standard garden hose.

One more thing to think about. The water that you drink, bathe with, flush the toilet with, or otherwise consume, where does it come from?

For most of us, it is taken from public waters only to be returned later as a warm water discharge. For those of us with wells, our water is simply taken before it reaches the public waters. But for those of us with working septic systems, we put most of it back.

 
pwk5017 wrote:
Certainly, it seems almost negligible when you perform the calculation over 24 hours(like a hose for a cabin would), but removing 1336.89 cubic feet of water from a stream in an hour or two for commercial purposes is the scenario i was talking about.
Click to expand...

Truth is, most pools (vast majority) are filled from public water systems which have permits to draw WAY more than that.

See previous.
 
The amount of water that can be withdrawn is to a large degree limited by the size of the hose or pipe. With a garden hose yo have a hard time getting more than 25 GPM. This by it's nature spreads the removal over a larger time and minimizes the impact on the stream.

The two key questions are:

What is the removal rate compared to the stream flow?
How many others are also withdrawing water along the stream?

I'd venture that with the exception of large agricultural areas and in areas where drillers are withdrawing the impact is minimal.
 
I'm not concerned if the hose is for withdrawal. I DO have a problem if it's for backwashing a pool. The fact that the creek was devoid of vegetation for some distance downstream of the hose worries me.
 
I believe if a stream is on private property or one owns property along a river, the property owner has a legal right to draw water from it. This is called riparian rights
 
I have NO idea if they were drawing or draining. Still waiting to hear back.
 
Please take your camera along and provide location information when you spot something that does not look correct. Usually there's this gut feeling when something is out of the normal. Usually like a person with 50 gallon drums would surely get my attention expecially when there are vessels that can hold much greater amounts and can be filled faster.

It is great to know that there are alot of us out there that do care about the environment. I keep telling myself to bring a garbage bag with me where ever I go fishing and help keep the area cleaner.
 
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