The Red Mo

There are some things time just can't fix.

If you head north of Snow Shoe, above Moshannon, you come to the little town of Grassflat. This is where my dad and I would put in for a run down the Red Mo. And where he taught me how to run fast water.

In the spring the water is high and there are deep pools separated wide lazy flats. In the summer it's barely navigable, but a heavy rain makes it passable for a day.

Decades of abandon mine runoff has stained the riverbed red and left it unsuitable for most aquatic life. Recent developments will tax it again as gas companies look for water resources to drill the Marcellus Shale.

I worry about this creek and the waters downstream, and I wonder what it would have been like before the mines, before it went red.