Specialists in Environmental Remediation, Ecology and Information Management
Much of Salmon Creek is located in Allegheny National Forest and has undergone extensive natural gas and oil development. This development was thought to have been causing widespread degradation of habitat in Salmon Creek and negatively impacting spawning opportunities for native trout that utilize riffles for reproduction. The sediment was assumed to have been coming from newly developed lease roads, well pads, and tank farms.
Repeated sampling across transects in riffles using a quantitative method developed by Bunt et. al. (1999) found that the percent of fine sediment in riffles were not significantly different in riffles downstream of development activities when compared to upstream, unaffected riffles. In both instances fines were not impacting riffle use by trout. Sediment, while generated by oil and gas extraction, is also being contributed to streams by dirt/gravel roads and other development activities.To understand potential 
sedimentation impacts to Salmon Creek and Little Salmon Creek (a key tributary), a substrate study was conducted to examine sediment characteristics (particle size and percent fines) in riffles near those areas downstream from intensive development and riffles located upstream that were not subject to similar oil and gas development.
In addition, trout numbers were generally low in the Salmon Creek main stem but this is most likely related to reduced productivity, acid precipitation, and poor buffering capacity of soils.
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