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| Programmatic Coordination Newsletter | contact: Paul T. Jacobson (pjacobson@LangheiEcology.com) |
| Volume 1, September 28, 2000 | |
| DIURNAL DISSOLVED OXYGEN PATTERNS IN STREAMS | contact: Bill
Stack Baltimore City Water Quality Management Section 410-396-0732 (bill.stack@baltimorecity.gov) |
| Continuous dissolved oxygen meters were recently installed at two nested ambient stream stations in a medium density residential area draining to Moores Run in north-east Baltimore City. The down-stream station drains 923 hectares while the upstream station drains 42 hectares. The stations are being monitored under the City’s Municipal Stormwater Permit. Both stations exhibit an expected diurnal pattern in dissolved oxygen concentration. What is disconcerting is that the oxygen concentration at the upstream watershed station varies from near saturation at mid-day to levels approaching 1.0 mg/l at night-time. Both stations exhibit depressed dissolved oxygen concentrations during storms where concentrations fall well below the state standard of 5.0 mg/l. The City plans to investigate if depressed dissolved oxygen levels occur in other streams as well. | |
| MONITORING IN THE POTOMAC RIVER BASIN |
contact: Jeffry Raffensberger |
| MDE and USGS are starting a collaborative project entitled "Streamflow and Water-Quality Monitoring in Support of Watershed Model Development, Potomac River Basin." USGS will be operating nine water-quality monitoring stations that will be equipped with automatic samplers that are capable of sampling storm events as well as base flow. Five of the sites are in Maryland, two are in West Virginia, and two are in Virginia. The data from these nine stations will be used to supplement data collected at 50 other sites to be sampled by MDE on a regularly scheduled basis. The aggregate data base will be used to calibrate a watershed model for the Potomac Basin that will be used to simulate large-scale effects of land-use change and best management practices on water quality. A workshop, jointly sponsored by MWMC, MDE, and ICPRB will be held on Oct 4th at Seneca Creek State Park to bring together agencies involved in the collection of water-quality data in the Potomac Basin to share information about their monitoring programs in the basin. | |
| EPA REGIONAL VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENT (REVA) |
contact: Betsy Smith |
| ReVA is a new program in the EPA Office of Research and Development (ORD). ReVA is an approach to regional scale, priority-setting assessment that will be done by integrating research on human and environmental health, ecorestoration, landscape analysis, regional exposure and process modeling, problem formulation, and ecological risk guidelines. ReVA is being developed to identify those ecosystems that are most vulnerable to being lost or permanently harmed in the next 5 to 25 years and to determine which stressors are most likely to cause the greatest risk. The program is being piloted in the Mid-Atlantic because of the richness of biological characterizations in the region. One of the prime objectives of ReVA is to predict consequences of environmental change under alternative future scenarios. These "alternative futures" will hopefully provide managers and policy makers with economic and quality of life trade-offs for a variety of environmental policies. A description of the program can be found at the following website: www.epa.gov/reva . | |
| SMALL WATERSHED MONITORING | contact: Keith
Van Ness Montgomery County Department of Environmental Protection and Watershed Management 240-777-7707 (keith.vanness@co.mo.md.us) |
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For the next three years, the Montgomery County DEP will be monitoring three watersheds through a cooperative partnership with the University of Maryland, Aquatic Ecology Lab. The goals of this cooperative project are to better understand how the timing, rate and the spatial configuration of land use change influences stream habitat and ecosystem health. The project will include:
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| LID WATERSHED RETROFIT MONITORING PROGRAM | contact: Dr.
Mow-Soung Cheng Prince Georges’s County Department of Environmental Resources 301-883-5836 (mscheng@co.pg.md.us) |
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A flow monitoring program is developed to continuously monitor a site where Prince George’s County, in partnership with the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), is undertaking a stormwater management retrofit of a small urban watershed. Stormwater retrofit options used in the watershed include a variety of Low-Impact Development (LID) practices. The watershed area includes a mix of high density residential, commercial and school land uses. Stormwater discharges to a natural stream, which has been identified by the USACE as unstable due to stream bed and bank erosion. The USACE had originally proposed armoring of the stream's bank and beds to control stability as part of a retrofit plan for the watershed. As an alternative to armoring the stream the County has proposed the use of LID to protect the stream’s bed and channel. The use of LID practices will reestablish a more natural hydrologic pattern for the watershed and over time the stream will be allowed to naturally recover its stability and function. An additional benefit to the use of LID retrofit practices will be an improvement in stormwater quality from the watershed. This monitoring program will provide solid data to quantify the effectiveness
of LID practices for urban stormwater management and will also help
fulfill a USACE requirement for the monitoring and evaluation of their
projects. The monitoring program is intended to cover at least a three-year
period, extending over both the pre- and post-LID retrofit construction
period. |
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| SOMERSET SUBDIVISION WATER QUALITY MONITORING PROGRAM | contact: Dr.
Mow-Soung Cheng Prince Georges’s County Department of Environmental Resources 301-883-5836 (mscheng@co.pg.md.us) |
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Two flow and water quality monitoring stations were recently set up in the Somerset Subdivision in the Prince George’s County. One station monitors runoff from a developed watershed, approximately 10 acres in size, which uses Low-Impact Development (LID) approaches to stormwater management. A second station monitors the stormwater discharge from a watershed, immediately adjacent to the above-mentioned LID watershed, with similar drainage area developed using a traditional approach to stormwater management. The land use in both watersheds is single family housing. The water quality monitoring parameters are same as those required under the NPDES Stormwater Program (MS4). The monitoring program will provide solid data to quantify the effectiveness of LID practices for urban stormwater management. The monitoring program is intended to extend over a period of a few years until enough monitoring data have been collected. |
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updated 10/27/00