Local environmental groups were electrofishing Friday morning on Pucketa Creek in an attempt to determine how polluted the water is.
Representatives from the Pucketa and Chartiers Watershed, Western Pennsylvania Conservancy Watershed Assistance Center and Allegheny County Conservation District used a device to send an electrical current through the water.
The electricity stuns the fish, forcing them to float belly up to the surface.
Then they're scooped up and placed in a bucket until the crew can finish the sample area and count the fish collected.
"The important thing is (electrofishing) temporarily stuns the fish," said Greg Schaetzle, a watershed scientist for the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. "It doesn't kill them. They'll be fine."
According to Schaetzle, how long the fish are unconscious depends on how close they were to the electricity.
"They could be out for a few seconds to a few minutes," he said.
The areas the crew tested were the tributaries in Hemphill and Whitten hollows, and along the main stream near the Lincoln Beach section of Upper Burrell and the Kinloch area of Lower Burrell.
Craig Barras, a senior environmental consultant with Blazosky Associates, is helping the organizations with the research process.
He said by learning which fish can survive in the water of Pucketa Creek, the researchers can determine the quality of the water. If the water quality is poor, they can request grants to improve it. Once it's improved, the creek hopefully can be restocked with trout.
According to Barras, the survey crew found mostly creek chubs, common suckers, northern hog-nosed suckers and black-nosed daces. He said he was surprised to find one rainbow trout, one brown trout and one small-mouthed bass.
"The species we're finding are mostly pollution-tolerant, which means they can stand certain amounts of pollution," Barras said. "There's only a few that are pollution-intolerant -- trout, bass -- but we only found one of each."
He said the water is impacted by acid mine drainage, but the habitat has potential for fish.
"It's just a matter of improving the quality a little bit more, and you could have a good trout stream," he said.
Don Orlowski, a New Kensington resident and member of the Tri-County Trout Club said he would be happy to see the creek restocked.
"Puckety Creek hasn't been stocked since I can remember," he said. "It had to be 15 to 20 years ago. I'd love to see it open for fishermen."
