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Research &
Monitoring
Photo: Lion Gulch Roosevelt NF,
Courtesy of John Koshak
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River Watch
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River Watch is a statewide volunteer water quality-monitoring program operated
by CWN in
partnership with the Colorado Division of Wildlife (CDOW). It has directly
affected over
70,000 people
since
its inception. CWN works with voluntary stewards, such as 83 schools and
ten nonprofit watershed groups, to monitor water quality and other indicators of
watershed health across 250 active stations. The high quality data is used
to educate citizens and inform decision makers about the condition of Colorado’s
waters. With the help of our volunteers, River Watch has become the second
largest water quality data generator in the State. For more information,
click
here.
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Research &
Monitoring Program |
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Focused River Watch-
Good
baseline chemical, physical, and biological data remain a
central issue in our ability to determine and manage for the
health of Colorado’s watersheds. This problem continues even as
the Colorado Division of Wildlife (CDOW), the Water Quality
Control Division (WQCD), the US Geological Survey (USGS), and
many others continue to collect water quality data. By
expanding the River Watch program, CWN is helping Colorado focus
on strategically collecting and utilizing water quality data.
In 2004, the River Watch program in partnership with the CDOW and Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE),
was awarded a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) to assess many of the state’s stream segments
listed on the Monitoring and Evaluation 305(b) list for aquatic
life impairment. The goal of this Focused River Watch program
is to collect chemical, physical, and biological data that will
be incorporated into the extensive amount of water quality data
already collected to generate information that will be used to
help accomplish the following:
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Determine appropriate aquatic life use classifications,
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Identify possible indicators/metrics for waterbody
types/geographic areas,
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Identify draft expected conditions,
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Develop assessment protocols for expected conditions and use
attainment, and
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Identify gaps in the data - variables or geographically.
PPT
for Curtis 5/18/2007 click here |
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CWN has collected 9 water
quality samples on the Cache la Poudre River since 2006 for an EPA study. |
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There are two primary phases of this project. Phase I, now
complete, involved monitoring 305(b) segments on 34 different streams that
either needed data or that the WQCD was not
scheduled to sample, through building volunteer monitoring
efforts and improving data management systems. River Watch is
now working on Phase II which aims to generate multiple layers
of high quality data, including aquatic life, sediment, physical
habitat, flow, and chemical parameters, to further evaluate
identified impaired stream segments. To do this, we are using
EMAP protocols where appropriate.
In less than a year, CWN has coordinated the collection of more
than 300 water quality samples. This builds on focused
projects in the Hayman Burn Area, the Roaring Fork Watershed,
and the Rocky Mountain National Park Restoration Monitoring.
Interested volunteers will be needed to help on occasion and
should contact
Curtis for details.
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EMAP-
CWN employees have been using EMAP (Environmental
Monitoring and Assessment Program) protocols as a standardized method to sample
Colorado’s Front Range streams. These protocols were developed by the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over many years and are very comprehensive
in measuring overall stream health. EMAP protocols collect data on a wide
variety of parameters, including biotic community composition, in-stream channel
measurements, riparian cover and composition, water quality, and much more.
EMAP even records information on human disturbances associated with a stream so
that degraded conditions can be linked to the source. The original intent of EMAP was to
obtain a snapshot of the overall health of streams in 12 western states. Because
of its comprehensive scope and strict protocols, we are considering EMAP as a
standardized method for stream monitoring. Until recent years, monitoring
of impaired streams generally involved looking at water quality alone. Now
there is a shift taking place in agencies around the country to also monitor
biological conditions because this may be more telling of overall stream health
compared to just water quality data. |
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CWN employees sampling fish populations on Big
Blue Creek in the Gunnison Basin. |
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Many states, including Colorado, are
developing indices of expected condition for benthic macroinvertebrates,
periphyton, and fish to compare all biological data CWN is focused on aquatic resource monitoring, and after five years of work, has
finished collecting data. Currently we are creating a database and assessing
appropriate analysis tools. Partners
include the EPA, CDOW, Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO) and the Colorado
Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE). Visit the
EMAP website or contact Amy
for more information.
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Aquatic Gap- Water
temperature is one of the most important aspects of water
quality. For all of us who live on land, air temperatures vary
greatly, even within a 24 hour period. Days are significantly
warmer than nights and, for the most part, snowy days are colder
than sunny days. For fish and other aquatic animals,
temperatures do not vary as much because of water’s high
specific heat.
Seasonal and
diurnal changes are small which makes water temperature all the
more important. Native fish that live on Colorado’s
Eastern plains or Western plateaus can only live in warm water
and fish like the Cutthroat Trout high in mountain streams can
only survive at lower temperatures. In fact, spikes in
temperatures at certain times of the year can prevent these fish
from reproducing. |
Aquatic Temperature Model: Blue shades represent
traditionally cold waters while red shades represent naturally warm waters. |
Because water temperature is fairly consistent
from season to season and from place to place, it is also the
only water quality variable that we can predict using computer generated models.
Colorado Watershed Network is producing a model that will
accurately predict water temperature
based on how big the streams are, what ecological region they
fall into and a plentitude of water quality temperature
records. This will help us to determine where native fish
populations
n Colorado and neighboring states should theoretically be,
compared to where they exist now. Additional analysis will
determine the causes to native fish population
declines, such
as distance from roads, land use, and point source pollution.
The data were
gathered by partners at CDOW, USGS, Colorado Department of
Health and Public Environment, and River Watch volunteers around
the state. The predicted values will then be used to help us
illuminate the natural ranges of declining species such as the
Roundtail Chub, the Brassy Minnow and the famous Colorado
Cutthroat Trout. This is just one way the data River
Watch volunteers collect directly
affects how we see aquatic
environments around Colorado.
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Mayfly
Study- One of the most difficult
challenges to regulatory agencies is establishing water quality
criteria for dissolved metals in Rocky Mountain streams. The EPA
currently uses standardized toxicity test results to calculate
metals criteria for streams. The goal of this practice is to set
standards that protect aquatic wildlife and habitat from the
damaging effects of mining pollution. However, the lack of data
for native species creates uncertainty about the efficacy of
this regulatory strategy.
Since the early
1980s, researchers in the field of environmental pollution have
been publishing study results that suggest aquatic insects are
sensitive indicators of moderate to severe metals contamination.
However, few standardized toxicity studies have been conducted
with native aquatic insects. |
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Colorado
Watershed Network and Colorado Division of Wildlife employees
are working together in an effort to provide the regulatory
community with reliable toxicity data for native insect species.
This USEPA funded research is conducted at the aquatic
toxicology laboratory in Fort Collins. Experiments are conducted
with mayflies and stoneflies collected from the Cache la Poudre
River. The insects are systematically exposed to zinc, cadmium
and copper in order to determine the lethal levels of each metal
to each species. A formal report to EPA will be delivered in
2007. CWN’s research
efforts, lead by Wally Johnston, are working to fill the gap in
information that policy makers and field biologists need to
accurately detail stream conditions. Wally’s research will
increase the ability of those in water quality and aquatic
sciences to make important decisions based on sound science.
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Chambers where mayflies are exposed to toxicants.
Mayflies are sensitive to pollution and are an environmental indicator species. |
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