If you give a mouse a cookie, you end up with a well-known children’s book. If you give a water molecule in the Crum Creek a phone plan (and a decent smart phone), you end up with snapchats about the Crum Creek Watershed.
1.
Home is where the heart is—or, in this case, the headwaters. The Crum Creek begins in Malvern, PA—15 miles by road from Swarthmore College.
2.
A water molecule has a lot to be excited about when it comes to cows. Agriculture is prominent in the upper half of the Crum Creek watershed, so run-off from the farms picks up various fertilizers and other pollutants as it makes its way to the Crum.
3.
Post-rain means bigger waterfalls and more instagramable pictures—and run-off. Urban runoff, according to the CRC is one of the primary reasons for the Crum’s impaired status.
According to the Chester Ridley Crum Watershed Associations (CRC), 33% of total stream miles of the Crum watershed areas are impaired, meaning they are unhealthy for the organisms that are normally part of the stream ecosystem. Part of this is the aforementioned agriculture, but more comes form our created suburban concrete jungle.
4.
Sometimes you just gotta chill—like in a lake. A man-made lake, like the Springton Lake (aka the Geist Reservoir). The Crum was dammed in 1931, flooding the old Springton Farm. Together with the other reservoir along the Crum—the Lower Crum Reservoir—the Crum Creek provides water for over 200,000 residents of Delco.
5.
bae is best. Bae is clean—bae is monochlormaine, a chemical used to treat water in all manner of places. Good for humans? Chyeah. Good for creek critters? Not so much.
Aqua America—a company founded by Swarthmore Engineers of Old—pumps water from the Springton Reservoir and cleans it with monochloramine before delivering it to the faucets of Delaware County.
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After the Crum water has been used (Showering? Boiling pasta? Bathing the dog?) by DelCo residents, it heads down to party at the daily sewage water and storm water mixer event in the sewers. So down it goes, into pipes, through pipes, lots of pipes, a seemingly never-ending array of pipes…
8.
… But the pipes (and the party) do eventually end. Everybody always ends up at DELCORA in Chester, PA, just before the sun rises–though, let’s be real, water molecules party 25/7. There, oils, fats, grits, and solids (use your imagination) are separated from their watery crew by putting the water and water-like substances through a series of tanks. There may be flies everywhere (thanks, fecal matter) but the water spends so long in each tank it may as well be a spa day–a day spent resting a rejuvenating before being sent back into the watershed.
9.
When it’s all over at DELCORA, water makes its way back out into the Delaware—exactly where it would have arrived had it never left the banks of the Crum. This time, though, it arrives in style with new bacterial friends brought along from its waste and sewage water friends at DELCORA.
So what does this tell us? That water molecules like aerial photography? That DelCo needs to be better stewards of the Crum Creek? Well, both.
The Crum Creek goes through a lot as the water makes its way down-stream. To learn more about it, head over to the CRCWA and read up on the Crum and other creeks!