The Hay Creek Watershed Association (HCWA), a program of Berks Nature, is organized by volunteers whose mission is to protect, preserve, and restore the Hay Creek watershed, including all areas within or impacting the watershed’s health and functionality, to ensure the long-term sustainability of this ecosystem and the services it provides. This mission is advanced through promoting and providing advocacy, education, water quality monitoring, and community involvement.
Asociación de la Cuenca del Arroyo Hay
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Where We Are
An essential source of drinking water for Birdsboro, exceptional wildlife habitat, and recreational haven for residents and visitors, the 22-square-mile Hay Creek Watershed lies within south-central Berks County and includes portions of Brecknock, Caernarvon, Robeson, and Union townships, as well as boroughs of Birdsboro and New Morgan.
The Hay Creek flows through a mixture of woodlands, including the Hopewell Big Woods, fields, active agriculture, suburban settings, and urban areas before joining the Schuylkill River. This diverse watershed shelters an abundance of wildlife on land and in its waters; its woodlands are designated as an Important Bird Area by the Audubon Society, one portion of the Hay Creek itself is considered a Class A Trout Stream, and the watershed is home to a number of rare species, including Bog Bluegrass and the Bog Turtle.
Additionally, some stream segments of Hay Creek are designated by the PA Department of Environmental Protection as “Exceptional Value” (EV) waters, granting it greater levels of protection.
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The Hay Creek Watershed Association meets on the 3rd Wednesday of each month at 5:30 pm at The Nature Place in Reading, PA.
For more information on becoming a member or getting involved, join us at an up-coming meeting or contact Beckey Seel, Berks Nature’s Volunteer Coordinator.
Beckey.Seel@berksnature.org
610-372-4992 x103
What We Do
Members of HCWA work to conserve and protect areas within the watershed so that the public can enjoy the many recreational opportunities found here.
Current Projects
Pedestrian Bridge at Rustic Park
The Hay Creek Watershed Association is proud to have played an integral role in the installation of a pedestrian bridge at Rustic Park in Birdsboro, which was installed in the fall of 2021 after several years of collaboration with the Birdsboro Borough, Birdsboro Municipal Authority, and the PA Bureau of Forestry.
The Hay Creek Pedestrian Bridge – a 6-foot-wide, ADA foot bridge – connects Rustic Park in Birdsboro to the 1,800-care Birdsboro Waters Preserve, providing easier access to preserve’s recreational trails, climbing areas, and trout fishing.
Baseline Monitoring of Hay Creek Watershed's Health
Leading up to March 2020, the Hay Creek Watershed Association (HCWA) had good momentum from a growing membership and a new strategic focus; they were energized for action! But like all of Berks Nature’s watershed associations, plans were changed in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Now, after long last, water quality monitoring of the Hay Creek watershed has resumed. The goal of this new, quarterly monitoring effort is to establish a “baseline” dataset – a description of the normal or expected conditions of the watershed. Baseline data collection establishes trends from which deviations can be better identified and explored.
To that end, the HCWA membership selected four new monitoring sites that characterize similarly sized drainage areas and, collectively, represent the full suite of the watershed’s landcover conditions. This approach will “cover all the bases”, so to speak, broadly describing as much of the watershed as possible.
Water quality parameters were also chosen with this watershed-wide scope in mind. In addition to core water quality indicators like pH, water temperature, conductivity, and dissolved oxygen, the HCWA membership will also measure the water for its turbidity, or clarity, as well as its concentration of nitrates, nitrites, and phosphates.
Berks County’s leading industry is agriculture, which can negatively impact stream health by overloading the watershed with excess nutrients from fertilizer, like nitrogen and phosphorus. The latter of HCWA’s water quality parameters will help the group monitor the impact of local agriculture on Hay Creek’s health.
