Since 2011, IUP students have been testing the water at the Beaver Run Reservoir, which serves about 130,000 customers in Westmoreland County, and small portions of Indiana and Armstrong counties, adding air quality monitoring to their duties in 2015. The Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County has renewed the monitoring service with two new one-year deals.
The water deal is for $99,000 for the water and $24,700 for the air.
The reservoir has 52 horizontal gas wells on its 5,000 acre property, which lies within a 43 square mile drainage area. The testing is to ensure that drilling and fracking are not damaging the water and air, and since the relationship began, there have been no major issues.
IUP publishes the results of its testing on a special website every four months. The water monitoring is under the supervision of geography and regional planning professor Ryan Okey and chemistry professor Nathan McElroy. The air monitoring is under the direction of physics professor John Bradshaw.
