Bear Lake, located approximately 50 kilometers (km) northeast of Logan, Utah, straddles the Utah-Idaho border and is nestled in a graben valley between the Bear Lake Plateau on the east and the Bear River Range on the west (Reheis and others, 2009). Its calcium carbonate type water is a brilliant green-blue color that, in combination with sandy beaches and easy access, draws thousands of visitors each year (Utah Division of Natural Resources, 2017). The lake is home to four endemic fish species including Bonneville Cisco, Bonneville Whitefish, Bear Lake Whitefish, and Bear Lake Sculpin; and a unique variation of the Bonneville Cutthroat Trout (Bear River Watershed Information System, 2017).
For the last several thousand years, the sources of water to this relatively large lake (32 km long by 11 km wide by up to 60 meters deep) were localized inflow from springs and surface run-off of rain and snow (Gerner and Spangler, 2006). During 1911-12, a connection between the Bear River, located approximately 10.5 km north, and Bear Lake was established so that the lake could be used as a water-storage reservoir (Gerner and Spangler, 2006). Bear River water is diverted at Stewart Dam, near Montpelier, Idaho, via the Rainbow Canal. Rainbow canal empties into Mud Lake, a shallow lake separated from Bear Lake by a natural dike that is also part of the Bear Lake National Wildlife Refuge. This water can be diverted into Bear Lake or returned to the Bear River through a canal that connects Mud Lake with the Bear Lake Outlet Canal. Water from Bear Lake can be pumped by the Lifton pumping station through the outlet canal and into the Bear River. Water levels vary 1-2 meters with releases of storage water in the top portion of the lake; however, there is a proposal to increase the volume of Bear River water stored in Bear Lake (see discussion below).
Problem
Increased population and resource development near Bear Lake pose complex challenges for local governments, resource managers, and environmental quality agencies/groups that work to balance economic growth while maintaining Bear Lake’s water quality and water clarity. Population in the Bear River Basin is expected to increase significantly by 2050. Development within and near Garden City, Utah, is moving outward from the lakeshore and up the sides of the foothills. Second homes and summer cabins account for most of the growth (Bear River Watershed Information System, 2017). Increased development near the lake may add to sediment and nutrient loading via soil erosion and run-off from urban surfaces.
Sediment and nutrient loading via the Bear River diversion and erosion of banks along streams that feed directly to Bear Lake are subjects of ongoing concern (Bear River Watershed Information System, 2017; Gerner and Spangler, 2006). To help provide water for rapidly growing cities along the Wasatch Front, a proposal was recently published to increase the volume of Bear River water stored in Bear Lake, which adds to existing concerns about Bear River diversions into the lake (Salt Lake Tribune, April 19, 2017). Overlaying these issues are periods of drought, which in 2004 caused Bear Lake to reach its lowest level in 70 years (Bear River Watershed Information System, 2017).
Water quality monitoring at Bear Lake tends to be done on a seasonal or more sporadic basis, which makes it difficult to identify short and long term water quality changes related to the issues described above, and build a robust baseline dataset that will be necessary for assessing future impacts to the lake. In addition, there are few weather stations in the vicinity of Bear Lake, which makes it difficult to interpret physical and chemical water data (e.g., water temperature and dissolved oxygen variability in response to net short and longwave radiation) or to compute lake energy budgets that are needed for evaporation estimates. To enhance water quality and weather monitoring at Bear Lake and address concerns about lake water quality and water budgets, the USGS, in cooperation with several local and state organizations/agencies, proposes to install two automated water quality profiling and weather monitoring platforms. The objectives, benefits, and approach for operating these systems are provided below.
Objectives
The primary objective of the monitoring is to quantify current water quality and weather conditions and build a robust baseline data set that can be used to assess future water quality changes. A secondary objective is to assess spatial water quality, weather, and evaporation rate variability across the lake. In addition to these objectives, data provided by the buoys will help quantify/assess the following issues at Bear Lake:
- Water quality impacts related to annual diversion and withdrawal of Bear River water to and from Bear Lake;
- Total algae concentration variability throughout the water column, which is fundamental to understanding primary productivity and nutrient cycling in the lake;
- Water quality impacts related to annual run-off from near-by streams;
- Spatial and temporal variability of limnology processes in Bear Lake (thermal stratification dynamics, oxic/anoxic boundary dynamics, annual turn-over, chemocline existence, etc.).
Relevance and Benefits
Monitoring Bear Lake’s water quality and refining its water budget, including quantifying lake evaporation rates, are fundamental to managing this resource during this dynamic period of increased population growth and potential alteration of lake management protocols. Automated water quality and weather monitoring systems will provide the needed data. The USGS has extensive experience operating these systems on Lake Mead, NV and AZ, for a project with similar objectives (the author of this proposal built and installed four similar systems on Lake Mead and developed operation and maintenance and data processing protocols to ensure data quality objectives were met). USGS has a vital interest in remaining at the forefront of this technology, both in terms of operation/maintenance of equipment and data interpretation.
The benefits of the project include
1) creation of a high quality, high frequency (i.e., short data logging intervals) water quality and weather dataset that can be used to assess variability of associated parameters around the lake;
2) dissemination of project data in near-real time to the USGS NWIS database, which is available to the public;
3) assessment of water quality impacts resulting from potential diversion of more Bear River water into Bear Lake than has been done historically;
4) detailed assessment of fundamental limnology processes such as annual turn-over and thermocline development at selected locations around the lake; and
5) refinement of Bear Lake’s water budget via well-documented estimates of evaporation.
Each of these benefits are timely and relevant to stakeholders, which is why several local and state organizations/agencies are project cooperators. The study will contribute to the USGS mission by increasing understanding of watershed and water quality interactions in large lakes in the intermountain west.
Below are publications associated with this project.
Climatic and limnologic setting of Bear Lake, Utah and Idaho
Late Quaternary sedimentary features of Bear Lake, Utah and Idaho
Endogenic carbonate sedimentation in Bear Lake, Utah and Idaho, over the last two glacial-interglacial cycles
The glacial/deglacial history of sedimentation in Bear Lake, Utah and Idaho
Sedimentary constraints on late Quaternary lake-level fluctuations at Bear Lake, Utah and Idaho
A quarter-million years of paleoenvironmental change at Bear Lake, Utah and Idaho
Paleomagnetism and environmental magnetism of GLAD800 sediment cores from Bear Lake, Utah and Idaho
Geology and geomorphology of Bear Lake Valley and upper Bear River, Utah and Idaho
Introduction to paleoenvironments of Bear Lake, Utah and Idaho, and its catchment
Influence of the diversion of Bear River into Bear Lake (Utah and Idaho) on the environment of deposition of carbonate minerals
Unusual Holocene and late Pleistocene carbonate sedimentation in Bear Lake, Utah and Idaho, USA
Age model for a continuous, ca 250-ka Quaternary lacustrine record from Bear Lake, Utah-Idaho
Bear Lake Water-Quality Data Visualizations
Displaying water-quality data with depth over time at a single location has always presented a challenge. These data visualizations were developed as a response to that issue by Katherine Jones, USGS Office of Quality Assurance.
Below are partners that are associated with this project.
- Overview
Bear Lake, located approximately 50 kilometers (km) northeast of Logan, Utah, straddles the Utah-Idaho border and is nestled in a graben valley between the Bear Lake Plateau on the east and the Bear River Range on the west (Reheis and others, 2009). Its calcium carbonate type water is a brilliant green-blue color that, in combination with sandy beaches and easy access, draws thousands of visitors each year (Utah Division of Natural Resources, 2017). The lake is home to four endemic fish species including Bonneville Cisco, Bonneville Whitefish, Bear Lake Whitefish, and Bear Lake Sculpin; and a unique variation of the Bonneville Cutthroat Trout (Bear River Watershed Information System, 2017).
Water-quality instrumentation is deployed on Bear Lake on floating platforms. For the last several thousand years, the sources of water to this relatively large lake (32 km long by 11 km wide by up to 60 meters deep) were localized inflow from springs and surface run-off of rain and snow (Gerner and Spangler, 2006). During 1911-12, a connection between the Bear River, located approximately 10.5 km north, and Bear Lake was established so that the lake could be used as a water-storage reservoir (Gerner and Spangler, 2006). Bear River water is diverted at Stewart Dam, near Montpelier, Idaho, via the Rainbow Canal. Rainbow canal empties into Mud Lake, a shallow lake separated from Bear Lake by a natural dike that is also part of the Bear Lake National Wildlife Refuge. This water can be diverted into Bear Lake or returned to the Bear River through a canal that connects Mud Lake with the Bear Lake Outlet Canal. Water from Bear Lake can be pumped by the Lifton pumping station through the outlet canal and into the Bear River. Water levels vary 1-2 meters with releases of storage water in the top portion of the lake; however, there is a proposal to increase the volume of Bear River water stored in Bear Lake (see discussion below).
Problem
Increased population and resource development near Bear Lake pose complex challenges for local governments, resource managers, and environmental quality agencies/groups that work to balance economic growth while maintaining Bear Lake’s water quality and water clarity. Population in the Bear River Basin is expected to increase significantly by 2050. Development within and near Garden City, Utah, is moving outward from the lakeshore and up the sides of the foothills. Second homes and summer cabins account for most of the growth (Bear River Watershed Information System, 2017). Increased development near the lake may add to sediment and nutrient loading via soil erosion and run-off from urban surfaces.
Sediment and nutrient loading via the Bear River diversion and erosion of banks along streams that feed directly to Bear Lake are subjects of ongoing concern (Bear River Watershed Information System, 2017; Gerner and Spangler, 2006). To help provide water for rapidly growing cities along the Wasatch Front, a proposal was recently published to increase the volume of Bear River water stored in Bear Lake, which adds to existing concerns about Bear River diversions into the lake (Salt Lake Tribune, April 19, 2017). Overlaying these issues are periods of drought, which in 2004 caused Bear Lake to reach its lowest level in 70 years (Bear River Watershed Information System, 2017).
Platform is anchored for the summer season. Water quality monitoring at Bear Lake tends to be done on a seasonal or more sporadic basis, which makes it difficult to identify short and long term water quality changes related to the issues described above, and build a robust baseline dataset that will be necessary for assessing future impacts to the lake. In addition, there are few weather stations in the vicinity of Bear Lake, which makes it difficult to interpret physical and chemical water data (e.g., water temperature and dissolved oxygen variability in response to net short and longwave radiation) or to compute lake energy budgets that are needed for evaporation estimates. To enhance water quality and weather monitoring at Bear Lake and address concerns about lake water quality and water budgets, the USGS, in cooperation with several local and state organizations/agencies, proposes to install two automated water quality profiling and weather monitoring platforms. The objectives, benefits, and approach for operating these systems are provided below.
Objectives
The primary objective of the monitoring is to quantify current water quality and weather conditions and build a robust baseline data set that can be used to assess future water quality changes. A secondary objective is to assess spatial water quality, weather, and evaporation rate variability across the lake. In addition to these objectives, data provided by the buoys will help quantify/assess the following issues at Bear Lake:
- Water quality impacts related to annual diversion and withdrawal of Bear River water to and from Bear Lake;
- Total algae concentration variability throughout the water column, which is fundamental to understanding primary productivity and nutrient cycling in the lake;
- Water quality impacts related to annual run-off from near-by streams;
- Spatial and temporal variability of limnology processes in Bear Lake (thermal stratification dynamics, oxic/anoxic boundary dynamics, annual turn-over, chemocline existence, etc.).
Relevance and Benefits
Monitoring Bear Lake’s water quality and refining its water budget, including quantifying lake evaporation rates, are fundamental to managing this resource during this dynamic period of increased population growth and potential alteration of lake management protocols. Automated water quality and weather monitoring systems will provide the needed data. The USGS has extensive experience operating these systems on Lake Mead, NV and AZ, for a project with similar objectives (the author of this proposal built and installed four similar systems on Lake Mead and developed operation and maintenance and data processing protocols to ensure data quality objectives were met). USGS has a vital interest in remaining at the forefront of this technology, both in terms of operation/maintenance of equipment and data interpretation.
The benefits of the project include
1) creation of a high quality, high frequency (i.e., short data logging intervals) water quality and weather dataset that can be used to assess variability of associated parameters around the lake;
2) dissemination of project data in near-real time to the USGS NWIS database, which is available to the public;
3) assessment of water quality impacts resulting from potential diversion of more Bear River water into Bear Lake than has been done historically;
4) detailed assessment of fundamental limnology processes such as annual turn-over and thermocline development at selected locations around the lake; and
5) refinement of Bear Lake’s water budget via well-documented estimates of evaporation.
Each of these benefits are timely and relevant to stakeholders, which is why several local and state organizations/agencies are project cooperators. The study will contribute to the USGS mission by increasing understanding of watershed and water quality interactions in large lakes in the intermountain west.
- Publications
Below are publications associated with this project.
Filter Total Items: 27Climatic and limnologic setting of Bear Lake, Utah and Idaho
Bear Lake is a large alkaline lake on a high plateau on the Utah-Idaho border. The Bear River was partly diverted into the lake in the early twentieth century so that Bear Lake could serve as a reservoir to supply water for hydropower and irrigation downstream, which continues today. The northern Rocky Mountain region is within the belt of the strongest of the westerly winds that transport moisturAuthorsW.E. Dean, W.A. Wurtsbaugh, V.A. LamarraLate Quaternary sedimentary features of Bear Lake, Utah and Idaho
Bear Lake sediments were predominantly aragonite for most of the Holocene, reflecting a hydrologically closed lake fed by groundwater and small streams. During the late Pleistocene, the Bear River flowed into Bear Lake and the lake waters spilled back into the Bear River drainage. At that time, sediment deposition was dominated by siliciclastic sediment and calcite. Lake-level fluctuation during tAuthorsJ. P. SmootEndogenic carbonate sedimentation in Bear Lake, Utah and Idaho, over the last two glacial-interglacial cycles
Sediments deposited over the past 220,000 years in Bear Lake, Utah and Idaho, are predominantly calcareous silty clay, with calcite as the dominant carbonate mineral. The abundance of siliciclastic sediment indicates that the Bear River usually was connected to Bear Lake. However, three marl intervals containing more than 50% CaCO3 were deposited during the Holocene and the last two interglacial iAuthorsW.E. DeanThe glacial/deglacial history of sedimentation in Bear Lake, Utah and Idaho
Bear Lake, in northeastern Utah and southern Idaho, lies in a large valley formed by an active half-graben. Bear River, the largest river in the Great Basin, enters Bear Lake Valley ???15 km north of the lake. Two 4-m-long cores provide a lake sediment record extending back ???26 cal k.y. The penetrated section can be divided into a lower unit composed of quartz-rich clastic sediments and an upperAuthorsJ. G. Rosenbaum, C.W. HeilSedimentary constraints on late Quaternary lake-level fluctuations at Bear Lake, Utah and Idaho
A variety of sedimentological evidence was used to construct the lake-level history for Bear Lake, Utah and Idaho, for the past ???25,000 years. Shorelines provide evidence of precise lake levels, but they are infrequently preserved and are poorly dated. For cored sediment similar to that in the modern lake, grain-size distributions provide estimates of past lake depths. Sedimentary textures proviAuthorsJ. P. Smoot, J. G. RosenbaumA quarter-million years of paleoenvironmental change at Bear Lake, Utah and Idaho
A continuous, 120-m-long core (BL00-1) from Bear Lake, Utah and Idaho, contains evidence of hydrologic and environmental change over the last two glacial-interglacial cycles. The core was taken at 41.95??N, 111.31??W, near the depocenter of the 60-m-deep, spring-fed, alkaline lake, where carbonate-bearing sediment has accumulated continuously. Chronological control is poor but indicates an averageAuthorsD. S. Kaufman, Jordon Bright, W.E. Dean, J. G. Rosenbaum, K. Moser, R. Scott Anderson, Steven M. Colman, C.W. Heil, Gonzalo Jiménez-Moreno, M. C. Reheis, K. R. SimmonsPaleomagnetism and environmental magnetism of GLAD800 sediment cores from Bear Lake, Utah and Idaho
A ???220,000-year record recovered in a 120-m-long sediment core from Bear Lake, Utah and Idaho, provides an opportunity to reconstruct climate change in the Great Basin and compare it with global climate records. Paleomagnetic data exhibit a geomagnetic feature that possibly occurred during the Laschamp excursion (ca. 40 ka). Although the feature does not exhibit excursional behavior (???40?? depAuthorsC.W. Heil, J.W. King, J. G. Rosenbaum, R. L. Reynolds, Steven M. ColmanGeology and geomorphology of Bear Lake Valley and upper Bear River, Utah and Idaho
Bear Lake, on the Idaho-Utah border, lies in a fault-bounded valley through which the Bear River flows en route to the Great Salt Lake. Surficial deposits in the Bear Lake drainage basin provide a geologic context for interpretation of cores from Bear Lake deposits. In addition to groundwater discharge, Bear Lake received water and sediment from its own small drainage basin and sometimes from theAuthorsM. C. Reheis, B.J.C. Laabs, D. S. KaufmanIntroduction to paleoenvironments of Bear Lake, Utah and Idaho, and its catchment
In 1996 a group led by the late Kerry Kelts (University of Minnesota) and Robert Thompson (U.S. Geological Survey) acquired three piston cores (BL96-1, -2, and -3) from Bear Lake. The coring arose from their recognition of Bear Lake as a potential repository of long records of paleoenvironmental change. They recognized that the lake is located in an area that is sensitive to changes in regional clAuthorsJoseph G. Rosenbaum, Darrell S. KaufmanInfluence of the diversion of Bear River into Bear Lake (Utah and Idaho) on the environment of deposition of carbonate minerals
Bear River, the largest river in the Great Basin, had some of its flow diverted into Bear Lake through a series of canals constructed between 1911 and 1918, turning Bear Lake into a reservoir. The prediversion lake had an unusually high Mg2+ : Ca2+ ratio (38 by weight), which resulted in precipitation of CaCO3 as aragonite. The amount and mineralogy of the carbonate did not change immediately afteAuthorsW.E. Dean, R. M. Forester, Jordon Bright, R.Y. AndersonUnusual Holocene and late Pleistocene carbonate sedimentation in Bear Lake, Utah and Idaho, USA
Bear Lake (Utah-Idaho, USA) has been producing large quantities of carbonate minerals of varying mineralogy for the past 17,000 years. The history of sedimentation in Bear Lake is documented through the study of isotopic ratios of oxygen, carbon, and strontium, percent organic carbon, percent CaCO3, X-ray diffraction mineralogy, HCl-leach inorganic geochemistry, and magnetic properties on samplesAuthorsW. Dean, J. Rosenbaum, G. Skipp, S. Colman, R. Forester, A. Liu, K. Simmons, J. BischoffAge model for a continuous, ca 250-ka Quaternary lacustrine record from Bear Lake, Utah-Idaho
The Quaternary sediments sampled by continuous 120-m-long drill cores from Bear Lake (Utah-Idaho) comprise one of the longest lacustrine sequences recovered from an extant lake. The cores serve as a good case study for the construction of an age model for sequences that extend beyond the range of radiocarbon dating. From a variety of potential age indicators, we selected a combination of radiocarbAuthorsSteven M. Colman, D. S. Kaufman, Jordon Bright, C. Heil, J.W. King, W.E. Dean, J. G. Rosenbaum, R. M. Forester, J. L. Bischoff, Marie Perkins, J. P. McGeehin - Web Tools
Bear Lake Water-Quality Data Visualizations
Displaying water-quality data with depth over time at a single location has always presented a challenge. These data visualizations were developed as a response to that issue by Katherine Jones, USGS Office of Quality Assurance.
- Partners
Below are partners that are associated with this project.