Dunkard Creek

Dunkard Creek is a stream that flows 36.9 miles (59.4 km) through Greene County, Pennsylvania and Monongalia County, West Virginia, near the towns of Mount Morris, Pennsylvania, and Blacksville, West Virginia. It flows into the Monongahela River northwest of Point Marion, Pennsylvania, approximately three miles north of the Pennsylvania-West Virginia border.

Mason-Dixon Historical Park is located on the banks of Dunkard Creek in an area where the creek crosses the border three times in less than one mile. The park grounds include Brown's Hill, the westernmost site from which Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon made astronomical observations during the original survey of the Pennsylvania–Maryland border in 1767.

The creek is named for members of the Dunkard Brethren, a pacifist, nonconformist group of Christians who settled in the region during the 18th century and practiced baptism by immersion. The Pennsylvania German word for "immerse" is dunke and people who immerse are called dunker.

In September 2009, Dunkard Creek suffered a massive fish kill resulting in the death of more than 160 species of fish, salamanders and endangered mussels in the creek. The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection determined that an algal bloom was responsible for the loss. The bloom is believed to have been possible as a result of high chloride and salt levels in the water. A Consol Energy mine discharge site on the creek is the likeliest source of contamination. The Shannopin Mine in the Bobtown area of Dunkard Township also discharges into Dunkard Creek. Since at least 2002, the West Virginia DEP had known about and been pressured by environmental groups to take action on high levels of chlorides and other contaminants in the Blacksville No. 2 outfall, but they took no action against Consol.

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