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| Programmatic Coordination Newsletter | contact: Paul T. Jacobson (pjacobson@LangheiEcology.com) |
| Volume 2, December 23, 2000 | |
| Baltimore Ecosystem Study Water Quality and Urban Hydrology Initiatives - Stream Studies along an Urban Rural Gradient in the Gwynns Falls and Baisman Run Watersheds. |
contact: Ken Belt |
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The Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES) is a comprehensive urban Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) project funded by NSF and EPA that includes investigators from the Institute of Ecosystem Studies, US Forest Service, the US Geological Survey and numerous other federal, university, and private agencies. As part of the BES hydrology initiatives, weekly water quality sampling for fecal coliform bacteria, a suite of cations and anions, and continuous flow gaging and stream temperature monitoring is conducted in the Gwynns Falls, and Baisman Run watersheds in Baltimore City and County. Investigators include scientists from the Institute of Ecosystem Studies, US Forest Service, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the US Geological Survey. The watershed approach is being used to characterize these watersheds, which have forested and agricultural land covers, as well as a range of urban densities. There are nine continuously recording stream gages, maintained by the USGS and complimented by a network of ten rain gages. Three core sampling stations are on the Gwynns Falls main channel (at Carroll Park, Villa Nova, and Gwynnbrook). There are two subwatershed sites (at Dead Run and Baisman Run), and four small watersheds that represent high density urban (Rognel Heights), suburban (Glyndon), agricultural (McDonogh), and forested (Pond Branch) land uses. Additionally, six ungaged sites in the Gwynns Falls watershed are been sampled weekly for one year through a collaborative arrangement with an investigator on a related project. Concentration and loading data has been collected for fifteen watersheds from the first year and a half of sampling. Temporal and spatial patterns for nutrient and other constituent concentrations have started to emerge from the data and is being examined within the context of the effects of civil infrastructure and the built environment. Plans for the future include the installation of storm monitoring stations, urban groundwater studies, synoptic nutrient source detection studies, benthic monitoring, and stream temperature work. Investigators in these and other efforts currently include Institute of Ecosystem Studies, US Forest Service, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, US Geological Survey, Johns Hopkins University, University of Maryland at Baltimore County, and the Baltimore City DPW. |
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Montgomery County Department of Environmental Protection |
contact: Edward Herbert
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The Montgomery County Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is conducting a project to determine the sources of fecal coliforms and their effects on water quality in our streams and on downstream waters. Historical data revealed fecal coliforms at extremely high levels, with values as high as 690,000 mpn and many others exceeding 260,000 mpn in streams throughout Montgomery County. Downstream, the District of Columbia (DC) identified Rock Creek as impaired by fecal coliform bacteria on their 303(d) Clean Water Act list (September 28, 1998). In developing its Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs), DC is assessing the County’s contribution to this water quality impairment in Rock Creek. The DEP study will help to identify illicit discharges or sewer line breaches through fecal and total coliform monitoring and will evaluate the use of ribonucleic acid (RNA) genetic typing to identify coliform sources. The DEP has completed weekly monitoring from May through July this year at six stations along the mainstem of Rock Creek to the DC line. We are currently awaiting results from Dr. Mansour Somadpour at the University of Washington on sources, human, other mammalian, or avian, in these samples. If the sources are human, we will begin the process of source tracking for leaking sewer lines or overflowing manholes and follow up with remedial action. If the source is other than human, we will evaluate the impacts of the monitored coliform levels and the potential need for remedial measures to protect human health and receiving stream quality. |
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| Monitoring Nutrients and Sediment in Maryland Streams |
contact: Jeffrey Raffensperger
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The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, the Maryland Department of the Environment, the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, and the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin, is monitoring streamflow and nutrient and suspended sediment concentrations at 15 stream sites throughout Maryland. Monitoring at these sites is being conducted under the auspices of 5 different USGS projects, but all the monitoring is being conducted to meet similar goals and using similar protocols. At all 15 sites, stream samples are being collected under both base-flow and stormflow conditions and are being analyzed for all nutrient species and suspended sediment, as well as selected other chemical constituents. Automatic water-sampling equipment is being used at all but 2 of the sites. Chemical concentration data are being used in conjunction with continuous streamflow data to calculate annual loads of nutrients and sediment and/or to provide calibration data for hydrologic and water-quality models. Streamflow, chemical concentration, and constituent load information is being published in USGS annual data reports as well as in selected USGS interpretive reports. Many of the data are or will soon be available on the World Wide Web, or by contacting the USGS office in Baltimore. Streams being monitored include: Potomac River (2 sites), Susquehanna River, Patuxent River (2 sites), Sideling Hill Creek, Conococheague Creek, Mattawoman Creek, Piscataway Creek, Zekiah Swamp Run, and St. Clement Creek on the western side of the Chesapeake Bay; and Choptank River, Chesterville Branch, Nanticoke River, and Nassawango Creek on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. |
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| Riparian Ecosystem Function in Urban Watersheds |
contact: Peter M. Groffman
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Riparian ecosystems have been shown to prevent the movement of pollutants from upland land uses to streams in many areas. This function is dependent on the capacity of riparian vegetation and microbial communities to intercept and process pollutants moving in surface runoff and/or groundwater flow. Under the Baltimore Ecosystem Study, we measured denitrification, an anaerobic microbial process that converts nitrate (a drinking water pollutant and cause of eutrophication in coastal waters) into nitrogen gas, and a series of soil variables (soil moisture, organic matter content, inorganic N) in four rural and four urban riparian zones in the Baltimore metropolitan area. Two of the riparian zones were forested and two had herbaceous vegetation in each land use context. There were no differences between urban and rural and grass and forest riparian zones, but variability was much higher in urban than rural sites (Figure 1) There were strong positive relationships between soil moisture (Figure 2) and organic matter content (Figure 3) and denitrification potential. The high variation in the urban context was caused by the presence of one very wet and three very dry sites. The results suggest that urban riparian sites can have significant denitrification, if soils are wet. However, urban riparian zones are often characterized by dry soils and low water tables due to increases in upland surface runoff and downcutting of streams associated with increases in impervious surfaces in urban watersheds. These factors can cause urban riparian zones to be hydrologically isolated from adjacent uplands and streams and therefore to have lower levels of pollutant removal functions. |
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| Water Quality Monitoring in Back River |
contact: John Martin |
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Back River is a shallow, muddy, eutrophic sub-estuary in the upper Chesapeake Bay that has for almost nine decades been the receiving stream for the effluent from the Back River Wastewater Treatment plant, the larger of Baltimore’s two wastewater treatment plants. As part of the plant’s operating permit, effluent quality is measured and reported to the Maryland Department of the Environment each month. To complete the picture of a wastewater treatment plant, however, it is necessary to monitor characteristics in the receiving stream as well. At the Back River plant, key parameters at several stations in Back River have been monitored on a monthly basis since 1993. Samples are collected from the surface and from a few inches above the bottom at five locations (four in Back River and one in neighboring Middle River) once per month. These samples are returned to the environmental laboratory at the Back River plant where they are analyzed for biochemical oxygen demand, suspended matter, and various forms of nitrogen and phosphorus (TKN, NH3, NO2, NO3, and ortho and total phosphorus). Portions of these samples are analyzed for fecal Coliform bacteria by the environmental lab at the Patapsco Wastewater Treatment plant and a final portion is analyzed for chlorophyll at a private laboratory. In the field, dissolved oxygen, water temperature, salinity and pH are measured as well as transparency of the water (Secchi depth). At the end of each year, data from the monthly field trips are tabulated and graphed first spatially looking at trends in the river, treatment plant effects, etc. Data are then graphed so as to compare the same parameters year to year. Since this effort began, year to year comparisons have been fairly flat with one exception. Chlorophyll, the pigment common to all photosynthetic organisms, has declined particularly in the years since the Back River plant has begun treating wastewater to control nitrogen. This decline is good news because it indicates a decline in the phytoplankton population in the river. |
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updated 1/1/1