In the case of Step Run, plugging four abandoned gas wells did the trick, raising the pH to 6. A measure of acidity and alkalinity (actually, of hydrogen and hydroxyl ionization potential), the pH scale sets neutral at 7, and from there the lower the number the more acidic; the higher the number, the more alkaline.

The Lucinda Watershed Association and the Lucinda Antler Club, in partnership with the Clarion County Conservation District, received a state Growing Greener grant for the well plugging.

Trudy Alexander of the conservation district said the four wells were plugged for less than $40,000 – depending on depth and what problems might crop up, it costs between $8,000 and $10,000 to plug a well.

That sounds like a lot of money, but well plugging is one of the more cost-effective ways of solving acid mine drainage problems.

Passive treatment systems using limestone and biological action can handle more bad water and multiple sources of acid mine drainage, but can cost $250,000 and up to complete.

Active treatment systems, where powerful chemicals trucked in and are continuously added to neutralize acid discharges, can cost millions over the long term.

Treating Step Run

Step Run rises in Washington Township , south and east of Strobleton. It flows almost directly south until it joins Licking Creek in northern Knox Township west of Snydersburg.

In 2006, the DEP added Step Run to the 303(d) list, due to low pH. In 2003, tests showed the little creek had a pH of 3.5 – about the same as sour orange juice.

In December 2003 the well plugging started and was finished by the following month.

With the source of acidity removed, water quality in Step Run began to improve. By the summer of 2007, the pH had risen to 6.7 – nearly neutral and above the pH 6 state standard – so in 2008 the DEP took the stream off the bad boy list.

The effort to clean up the stream made the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s website pages outlining success stories in cleaning up non-point source pollution.

Why the water is red

Wells, especially older gas and oil wells drilled before modern regulations and where casings may have deteriorated, can allow water from polluted aquifers to rise to the surface or to contaminate unpolluted aquifers.

The pollution may be caused by mining activities, where pyrites (iron and sulfur compounds) are exposed to air or water containing dissolved oxygen.

A chemical reaction creates sulfuric acid and iron oxides; the acid keeps aquatic organisms from living in streams, and the iron oxides coats the stream beds, preventing prevents fish from hatching eggs there and giving damaged steams a tell-tale orange color.

Sometimes it’s not a mining problem, but the well itself brings enough air and oxygen-rich water into contact with pyrites to cause the acid/iron discharge.

Alexander said it isn’t clear, and it would probably be difficult to determine for sure, just what caused the bad water that came from the old wells. Topographic maps show some old, relatively small surface mines on the ridges above Step Run, along with many gas wells in and around the stream valley.

And sometimes, neither drilling nor mining is to blame – natural erosion exposes pyrites to air and water. Paint Creek, for example, was called that because of its iron oxide color long before there were any mining or drilling operations in the area.

But Paint Creek and Step Run aren’t the only streams showing the yellow-orange-red colors of iron oxides. Mining and drilling have placed many local streams on the impaired streams list, or damaged them to the point they are good candidates for the list.

More well plugging

This wasn’t the first attempt to clear up mine acid problems by plugging wells, and effort did not stop with Step Run.

In 2002, then-DEP Secretary David Hess visited a well-plugging site along Toby Creek in Paint Township where an abandoned well that had been spewing acidic water into Toby for many decades.

Growing Greener grants were used by the conservation district and the local Alliance of Wetlands and wildlife group to fund the plugging of more than a dozen wells in the Toby Creek Watershed.

The Iron Furnace chapter of Trout Unlimited has also been involved in efforts to plug old well discharges along Piney Creek in Limestone Township

And back in the Licking Creek watershed, with Growing Greener funding, more wells have been plugged along Mahles Run in Washington Township, which flows south from the Fryburg area and joins Licking Creek just west of Lucinda near Huefner.

And at that point, the name of the stream changes from Licking Creek to Paint Creek.

Paint Creek joins Deer Creek just south of Shippenville; Deer Creek flows into the Clarion River in Beaver Township three or four miles downstream of the Piney Dam.

In January, Alexander said, a well is scheduled for plugging along Mahles Run near Shady Drive in Knox Township .

Mahles Run is “starting to come back,” Alexander said, and working with the DEP’s Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation, lime is being added at a point in the upper reaches of the stream to help increase the pH of the stream.

The DEP estimates there are 200 or more abandoned oil and gas wells in Clarion County.