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GRAFTON, W.Va. – West Virginians will get a glimpse of the state’s wild and wonderful underwater world when the Department of Environmental Protection’s mobile aquarium visits Grafton High School on Aug. 30 from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.
The West Virginia-built mobile aquarium is six-feet deep and holds approximately 1,700 gallons of water. It weighs more than 25,000 pounds when full.
The mobile aquarium display is part of the Three Fork Creek survey conducted by the DEP’s Office of Abandoned Mine Lands and Reclamation to repair acid mine drainage. The stream survey will be used to assess the effectiveness of water treatment in four tributaries of Three Fork Creek, which has included limestone dosers since 2011.
Since fish, and other aquatic life, are indicators of the health of a stream, every two years a survey is performed on Three Fork Creek. During the 2016 survey, the DEP’s Watershed Assessment Branch staff will collect fish and benthic macroinvertebrates and assess water chemistry and habitat on four sample sites along the creek. After the fish are catalogued, they will be transported to the mobile aquarium for the public to view on Aug. 30. After the event, the fish will be released back to their native stream.
For more DEP news and information, go to www.dep.wv.gov. Also, be sure to connect with the agency on all social media platforms. Follow @DEPWV on Twitter and find us on YouTube by searching “Environment Matters.” For specific information about our REAP (Rehabilitation Environmental Action Plan), West Virginia Project WET (Water Education for Teachers), West Virginia Watershed Improvement Branch, Youth Environmental Program and Human Resources initiatives, connect on Facebook.