Land Resources

Nearly the entire Juniata River basin lies within the Ridge and Valley Physiographic Province.  The western edge of the watershed (only four percent of the total area) extends into the Appalachian Plateau Physiographic Province.  The Allegheny Front, a major north-south running escarpment, separates the two provinces.  Because most of the basin is in the Ridge and Valley province, the basin topography is characterized by parallel series of northeast-southwest running ridges outlining deeply cut river valleys.  This basic topography influences many aspects of the basin, such as soil type, land use, and transportation routes.

Soils in the Juniata River basin are largely derived from underlying bedrock material of three main types: sandstone, shale, and limestone.  Differences in erosion patterns and rates among these bedrock types enhanced the already-folded topography of the basin.  Sandstone erodes the most slowly and thus makes up the majority of ridges in the region.  Limestone weathers more quickly, eroding and dissolving to form wider, flatter valleys.

In Huntingdon County for example, 66 percent of the county consists of soils composed of residual material formed by the weathering of bedrock along the ridges and uplands.  Twenty-two percent of the county’s soils are colluvium, the deposits left at the base of slopes resulting from long-term erosion processes such as gravity and rainfall.  Only six percent of Huntingdon County’s land is stream-transported and deposited alluvial soil.  (USDA, 1978).  Although this information only pertains to one county in the region, soil surveys from the surrounding counties indicate that these proportions are similar across the Ridge and Valley Province.

Twelve basic soil associations are located in the basin.  Table III-1 describes each association succinctly.  The locations of the associations are indicated on Map III-1.

Compiled from county soil surveys and the State Soil Geographic Database (STATSGO) (USDA, 1994)

* Limitations are as follows:

1 – Slope
2 – Erosion hazard
3 – Shallowness to bedrock
4 – Surface stones
5 – Hazard of groundwater contamination
6 – Sinkholes
7 – Seasonal high water table
8 – Slow permeability
9 – Flooding
10 – Wetness
11 – Droughty
12 – Rapid permeability
13 – Low fertility
14 – Shrink-swell

Common soil limitations for residential development include steep slopes, large stones or boulders, slow permeability, seasonal high water table, rapid seepage (which can lead to a hazard of ground water contamination from septic systems), sinkholes, flooding, and shallowness to bedrock.  Factors that limit the growing of crops on certain soils include steep slopes, large stones, small surface stones or coarse fragments, shallowness to bedrock, wetness, flooding, limited available water capacity, and low natural fertility.

Residential development and crop cultivation are limited on many of the upland shale soils in the basin.  Steep slopes, a shallow depth to bedrock, and shale fragments which limit the soil from holding much water, combine to leave these soils unsuitable for either cropland or development.

Hydric soils are also limiting to development or agriculture by being poorly drained and saturated much of the growing season.  These soils exhibit ponding, and are generally high quality areas for wetland plants and wildlife.  These are the soil series in the watershed that are considered hydric: Andover, Armagh, Atkins, Brinkerton, Carlisle, Dunning, Holly, Marks, Melvin, Newark, Nolo, Purdy, and Shelmadine.

B. Land Ownership

Land in the Juniata River watershed is owned primarily by private individuals.  Over 80 percent of the 3,403 square miles in the watershed is privately owned.  In some areas of the watershed such as the Broad Top plateau, nearly half of the private land base is owned by absentee landowners.  At least 635 square miles are in public ownership, or 18.7 percent of the total area in the watershed.

Most public land in the Juniata River watershed is owned either by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania or the federal government.  Large tracts of public land exist in the region.  State forests and state game lands lie along many of the wooded ridges.  The Raystown Lake Project, in southern Huntingdon County, is managed by the Army Corps of Engineers.  A sizable experimental forest owned and managed by Pennsylvania State University lies in the northern part of Huntingdon County.  The Allegheny Portage Railroad, a National Historic Site, is located at the Blair-Cambria county line where it climbs the Allegheny Front.

A small amount of county and municipal-owned land also exists in the region, in the form of public water reservoirs, public buildings and parks.

Table III-2 lists the major categories of public land in the region, their acreage, and the percent of the total watershed.  The locations of public lands are shown on Map VI-1.

(Calculated by JCWP using data from Bishop, 1998, ERRI, 1996, and USACOE, 1995b)

C. Critical Areas: Steep Slopes

The Juniata River basin lies in the Ridge and Valley Province, with highly-folded topography and an abundance of steep slopes.  Slopes of 25 percent or greater make up 457,647 acres, or 21 percent of the watershed.  Because of the risks and costs inherent to building on such steep slopes, this removes a considerable amount of land from the developable land base.  It also helps to explain why so much land in the region has remained forested.  As long as these slopes remain forested, the likelihood of landslides and erosion problems (common problems associated with steep slopes) is relatively low.  However, because these slopes often run down directly to a stream, the possibility of sedimentation remains a concern.  Map III-2 shows the location of the steep slopes in the basin.

D. Landfills

Four landfills have received PA Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) permits within the basin: two municipal waste landfills and two residual waste (non-hazardous industrial) landfills.  Compared to other regions of Pennsylvania, this is a relatively small number.  For example, the neighboring Kiski-Conemaugh River Basin, which is about half the size of the Juniata watershed, contains nine total landfills (Kiski-Conemaugh River Basin Alliance, 1999).

Mifflin County’s landfill is owned and operated by the Mifflin County Solid Waste Authority.  The Waste Systems International landfill, located in the Broad Top region of Bedford County, used to be jointly owned and operated by the counties of Bedford, Fulton, and Huntingdon.  However, this landfill became privately owned and operated in 1997.  Two major industries in the region, Appleton Papers and Standard Steel, have residual waste landfills to store paper and foundry waste, respectively.  Table III-3 lists landfill information.

(DEP, 1999e)

E. Hazard Areas

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and DEP both track hazardous waste sites.  The EPA uses three main information systems to track land-based waste generation, releases, and transportation, and to organize and prioritize remediation.

The Resource Conservation and Recovery Information System (RCRIS) tracks hazardous waste generation, transport, storage, and disposal.  According to EPA data, 229 RCRIS sites exist in the watershed.  About half of these are located in the urban areas of Altoona and Lewistown.  Table C-2 in Appendix C lists these facilities.

The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) focuses on tracking over 300 toxic chemicals and their release into the air, water, and land by various industries.  Those who manufacture, store, or release these chemicals are included on the TRI list.  Forty-six TRI-related facilities are located in the watershed.  Table C-3 in Appendix C lists these facilities.

The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Information System (CERCLIS) is the tracking system for the National Priority List (NPL) of hazardous waste sites, better known as the “Superfund” program.  This system handles the assessment, prioritization, and remediation of the most hazardous and polluted sites.  Eight sites in the watershed are in the CERCLIS system, but only two of those are on the NPL.  Table III-4 lists the CERCLIS and Superfund sites in the watershed.

(EPA, 1999a; EPA, 1999d)

The DEP has a comparable program to Superfund to manage the most contaminated sites in Pennsylvania: the Hazardous Sites Cleanup Program.  Through this program, DEP has the authority to conduct site investigations and remediation at hazardous sites.  The F.E. Cooper site in Broad Top Township, Bedford County, is on the PA Priority List for Remedial Response.  The Easterly Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) in Logan Township, Blair County, was delisted in 1999 after remediation work was completed.  Three sites in Mifflin County are considered Interim Response Sites: Royer Dump Site in Granville Township and Naginey Quarry and Mifflin County Recycling in Armagh Township.  All three sites have had the interim response completed and await further remediation (DEP, 1997).

DEP also has a Land Recycling Program, begun in 1995, which encourages private cleanups and reuse of industrial sites.  The Land Recycling Program has a unique approach, combining economic development with environmental cleanup.  The program focuses on motivating private cleanup activities by allowing flexibility in cleanup standards and providing liability protection for companies willing to cleanup a site.  Thus far, the program has been quite successful: more than 650 sites have been cleaned up as of January 2000.  Table III-5 lists the past and present program sites in the watershed.

Instead of spending a lot of money on cleanup activities, this program allows DEP to fund communities to do environmental assessments of potential sites as well as assist these communities and non-liable landowners in implementing a cleanup plan.  In the 1997-98 fiscal year, two economic development agencies in the watershed received grants to do environmental assessments.  Bedford County Development Association received $14,550 to do an assessment at the former Better Tire site, and the Altoona-Blair County Development Corporation received two grants of $30,000 and $90,000 to do assessments of the former Conrail Storehouse and the former Conrail Yards, respectively.

The Land Recycling Program is tied closely to the concept of brownfields.  Brownfields are former industrial sites that have perceived contamination and a good potential for reuse.  DEP has set up a Brownfields Directory to list and market available brownfield sites.  Blair County has seven sites listed, and Bedford County has three sites within the watershed in the directory  (DEP, 2000a).  Mifflin County received an EPA grant in 1999 to undertake a pilot project that identifies and assesses four to six brownfield sites.  Grants are also available from DEP to do a brownfields inventory in counties and municipalities (DEP, 2000b).

(DEP, 1998c)

The Juniata River watershed lies for the most part in a non-coal region between the bituminous (west) and anthracite (northeast) coalfields of Pennsylvania.  Low-volatile bituminous coal fields are located in two main areas of the watershed: along the Allegheny Front on the northwestern edge of the watershed, and on the Broad Top plateau at the junction between Bedford, Fulton, and Huntingdon counties.  According to remote sensing data, only 5,153 acres of strip mines or quarries exist in the watershed, or about one-quarter of one percent of the total land area.  Maps II-5 and II-6 show the location of strip mines and quarries.  Map II-4 shows the location of coal seams in the watershed.

Even this relatively small amount of abandoned mine land can lead to severe localized water quality problems.  As noted by DEP’s Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation (BAMR), “Unfortunately, the past under-regulated mining of a valuable natural and economic resource left open pits, coal refuse and spoil piles, acid mine drainage (AMD), dangerous highwalls, open shafts, erosion, clogged stream channels, undermined areas with subsidence potential, underground fires, and dilapidated buildings.  Many of these abandoned mines have severely degraded the quality of surrounding land and water and pose hazards to Pennsylvania’s citizens” (DEP, 1999d).

Many of the areas along the northwestern edge of the watershed in Blair County have been reclaimed.  However, the Broad Top region is still in need of significant work to reclaim mined areas and to remediate the impacts of AMD on local streams.  County conservation districts and state agencies are gradually addressing the high-priority problem areas.  One method of remediation involves the application of biosolids (leftover sludge from the wastewater treatment process) to barren lands in order to provide a nutrient-rich substrate for revegetating the land.

The AMD Set Aside Program of BAMR indicates in its 1998 Status Report that five project sites in the watershed were in various stages of investigation, design, or construction for remediation work.  Table III-6 lists these projects.

(DEP, 1999a)

3. Sinkholes

Sinkholes are depressions in the land where limestone has dissolved.  They are a common occurrence in the Juniata watershed.  These holes generally serve as a kind of “reverse spring,” where surface water enters and mixes directly with ground water.  Unfortunately, some people see these holes in the ground as potential garbage dumps.  Because sinkholes are conduits into ground water aquifers, dumping garbage into them is likely to cause ground water pollution.

In the same way, farming in an area with many sinkholes has the potential to adversely affect water quality.  Runoff contaminated by nutrients and chemicals can enter directly into the ground water via sinkholes, instead of by the usual slow infiltration process.  The use of lawn chemicals in residential areas can have the same impact.  Thus, special efforts should be made in areas of limestone bedrock to manage the use of fertilizers and pesticides so that surface water will not transport such chemicals into the ground water via sinkholes.  Map II-4 illustrates the location of carbonate bedrock (limestone areas) in the watershed.

Click here to continue to Chapter IV - Water Resources

Or here to return to the Table of Contents