Publications

Selected nitrogen and phosphorus (nutrient), suspended-sediment and total suspended-solids surface-water data were compiled from January 1980 through December 1995 within the Great Salt Lake Basins National Water-Quality Assessment study unit, which extends from southeastern Idaho to west-central Utah and from Great Salt Lake to the Wasatch and western Uinta Mountains. The data were...

The Southern Pacific Transportation Company completed a rock-fill causeway across Great Salt Lake in 1959. The effect of the causeway was to change the water and salt balance of Great Salt Lake by creating two separate but interconnected parts of the lake, with more than 95 percent of freshwater surface inflow entering the lake south of the causeway. The water and salt balance of Great...

No abstract available.

Residential development in the canyons and foothills surrounding Salt Lake City, Utah, is growing at a rapid pace. Urban development typically degrades the water quality when formerly natural lands are developed. In Emigration Canyon, however, residential development is replacing land formerly used for grazing and recreation. It is not clear how this land use change has affected the...

The Great Salt Lake Basins study area of the National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) program, which began in 1997, is increasing the scientific understanding of factors that affect surface-water quality within the study-area boundaries (fig. 1). One way to improve the understanding of these factors is to look at historical trends in existing water-quality data. Unfortunately, short...

In 1995, ground water was the source of drinking water to about 52 percent of the population served by public drinking water systems in the Great Salt Lake Basins study unit, which includes parts of Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming. Existing nitrate and volatile organic compound data for ground water collected in the study unit were compiled and summarized as part of the National Water-Quality...

This is the thirty-seventh in a series of annual reports that describe ground-water conditions in Utah. Reports in this series, published cooperatively by the U.S. Geological Survey and the Utah Department of Natural Resources, Division of Water Resources and Division of Water Rights, provide data to enable interested parties to maintain awareness of changing ground-water conditions...

Potable ground-water supplies throughout the world are contaminated or threatened by advancing plumes containing radionuclides, metals, and organic compounds. Currently (1999), the most widely used method of ground-water remediation is a combination of extraction, ex-situ treatment, and discharge of the treated water, commonly known as pump and treat. Pump-and-treat methods are costly...

Ground water provides much of the water supply for residents of Tooele Valley (fig. 1). The protection, development, and wise management of ground-water resources are important to support community growth and to ensure the continued availability of ground water for all users. The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with Tooele County, Tooele City, Grantsville City, the U.S. Army, and...

Acid mine drainage from abandoned and inactive mines affects the water quality of the upper reaches of Fisher Creek, Montana. A sodium chloride tracer was added to the stream for 29.5 hours to provide a hydrologic context for synoptic sampling of metal chemistry in the stream and its inflows. The detailed profile of stream discharge obtained from the sampling helped to indicate those...

This report summarizes previous investigations of aquatic biological communities, habitat, and contaminants in streams and selected large lakes within the Great Salt Lake Basins study unit as part of the U.S. Geological Survey's National Water-Quality Assessment Program (NAWQA). The Great Salt Lake Basins study unit is one of 59 such units designed to characterize water quality through...

Information on the ground-water system in the northern part of Juab Valley, Utah, is needed by water managers to plan the optimal use of surface water that will be imported by the Central Utah Project and ground water pumped locally. The response of the ground-water system to an increase in withdrawal with no new sources of recharge was simulated to provide a baseline for comparing...