Middle Spring Watershed Association

Middle Spring Watershed Association Middle Spring Watershed Association is a non-profit organization with the mission of promoting the p

Middle Spring Watershed Association (MSWA) is a non-profit organization with the mission of promoting the protection and restoration of Middle Spring Watershed, which includes: actively addressing sewage treatment issues, development impact, and water quality; increasing fish, wildlife and plant habitats; and promote community education about the ecological importance of Middle Spring Watershed streams.

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08/30/2026

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1567566572072951&set=a.607067704789514

Every Parking Space Is a Stormwater Decision 🌧️🅿️

When cities experience flooding, attention often turns to rivers, canals, pumps, and large-scale drainage infrastructure. But countless parking lots, driveways, and other paved surfaces also contribute to the problem by rapidly sending rainwater into already overloaded drainage systems.

A conventional asphalt parking lot is designed to move water away as quickly as possible. But what if a parking lot could instead become a water-sensitive landscape?

By integrating rain gardens, tree pits, permeable surfaces, and on-site stormwater storage, parking areas can help capture, slow down, filter, and retain rainwater before it reaches the drainage system.

This approach is part of green infrastructure—using natural systems alongside traditional engineering to manage water more sustainably. Instead of treating every drop of rain as something that needs to be removed immediately, the landscape becomes part of the solution.

As cities invest billions in canals, pumping stations, and flood-control infrastructure, it is equally important to rethink everyday developments. Schools, residential communities, commercial sites, roads, and parking lots all influence how water moves through a city.

Sometimes, improving flood resilience doesn't only mean building bigger drainage systems—it means designing every site to manage more of its own water.

đź’¬ Should conventional parking lots be required to capture and control their stormwater runoff?

🎨 Credit: CARe-Centric

Erosion sock and wooden stakes in on site for construction of the Middle Spring Greenway, which should start next week, ...
08/28/2026

Erosion sock and wooden stakes in on site for construction of the Middle Spring Greenway, which should start next week, and include a creek access area near Branch Creek Place, and a filtration system to intercept runoff from Martin Ave.

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07/29/2026

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That white fuzz isn't mold. It's a fungus eating poison.
For decades, Maine farmers spread sludge on their fields because the state told them it was safe. The sludge — treated municipal waste — was licensed, regulated, and marketed as free fertilizer. What nobody mentioned was that the wastewater treatment plants were processing effluent from paper mills, tanneries, and textile factories that used PFAS, the "forever chemicals" that don't break down in soil, water, or human blood. The farmers didn't know. The state didn't test for it. The chemicals just accumulated, year after year, in the hay, the milk, the beef, the groundwater. By 2025, over 100 Maine farms and 500 residential properties tested positive. Five farms closed. Three scaled back. The rest were watching their livelihoods dissolve into the dirt.
Then Maine did something no other state had tried.
The Department of Environmental Protection funded a project using wood-rot fungi mycelium to biologically break down PFAS chemicals. The mechanism is enzymatic degradation — specific species of white-rot fungi, including Phanerochaete chrysosporium and Trametes versicolor, produce extracellular enzymes called laccases and peroxidases that attack the carbon-fluorine bonds in PFAS molecules. Those bonds are among the strongest in organic chemistry, which is why PFAS are called "forever chemicals." The fungi don't care. They evolved to break down lignin in rotting wood, and their enzymes are indiscriminate enough to shred fluorinated compounds that industrial chemistry couldn't touch.
Here's why this is mechanically brilliant. Traditional PFAS remediation involves excavation, incineration, or deep-well injection — all expensive, energy-intensive, and destructive to soil structure. Mycoremediation works in place. The mycelium is mixed into contaminated soil as a spore-infused substrate — usually sawdust, straw, or wood chips — and left to colonize. Over 12 to 18 months, the fungal network spreads through the soil profile, secreting enzymes that degrade PFAS into shorter-chain compounds, then into harmless fluoride ions and carbon dioxide. The process doesn't sterilize the soil. It rewilds it.
The second-order effect is scalable and democratic. Wood-rot fungi are not exotic lab creations. They grow on dead trees in every forest in Maine. The spores can be cultivated in simple incubators, mixed with local agricultural waste, and applied by farmers themselves. A dairy farm in Fairfield that lost its organic certification due to PFAS contamination is now running a pilot mycoremediation plot, measuring degradation rates and documenting soil microbiome recovery. If the data holds, Maine will have a remediation tool that costs a fraction of industrial alternatives and can be deployed by the people who need it most.
Forever chemicals broken. Soil renewed. Fungi fed.

06/01/2026
05/15/2026

This Penn State webinar might be of some value to people in the Middle Spring area who have, or fear they may have, PFAS contamination of their well.

"Pennsylvania private well owners are invited to attend this informative webinar on testing for PFAS in their water supply. PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances—often referred to as “forever chemicals”—have been widely used in industrial and household products and persist in the environment, where they have been detected in soil, surface water, and groundwater. Participants will gain a better understanding of how PFAS move through the environment, potential pathways for human exposure, and available testing and monitoring resources for private water supplies. The webinar will also cover how to interpret test results, explore management options, and review current scientific research and regulatory developments related to PFAS."

"The free one-hour webinar provides a complimentary water test for private water supply users valued at approximately $300."

Been a week since MSWA did its first real creek cleanup of the year, as part of Ship Shape Day, but here are some photos...
05/03/2026

Been a week since MSWA did its first real creek cleanup of the year, as part of Ship Shape Day, but here are some photos:

05/01/2026
https://www.shipnc.com/columns/outdoors/article_83f74689-aafc-4f77-bf25-8705af13a077.html".... It’s horrible that foreve...
04/30/2026

https://www.shipnc.com/columns/outdoors/article_83f74689-aafc-4f77-bf25-8705af13a077.html

".... It’s horrible that forever chemicals have been found in the Middle Spring Creek, and we’ll have to find a way to provide folks along the spring with a safe water supply. But without stocking fish or allowing anglers to keep and eat fish, there is a bright side...."

For some reason, I’ve always looked on the bright side of things. It’s horrible that forever chemicals have been found in the Middle Spring Creek, and we’ll have to find

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Shippensburg, PA
17257

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