Publications

The Riverton Processing site was a uranium mill 4 kilometers southwest of Riverton, Wyoming, that prepared uranium ore for nuclear reactors and weapons from 1958 to 1963. The U.S. Department of Energy completed surface remediation of the uranium tailings in 1989; however, groundwater below and downgradient from the tailings site and nearby Little Wind River was not remediated. Beginning in 2010, a

We conducted a field study during 2020–21 to describe habitat use patterns of juvenile Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) in the mainstem Willamette, McKenzie, and Santiam Rivers and to evaluate how habitat suitability criteria affected the predictive accuracy of a hydraulic habitat model. Two approaches were used to collect habitat use data: a stratified sampling design was used to ensure

A three-dimensional numerical model of groundwater flow was developed and calibrated for the unconsolidated New Jersey Coastal Plain aquifers underlying Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst (JBMDL) and vicinity, New Jersey, to evaluate groundwater flow pathways of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) contamination associated with use of aqueous film forming foam (AFFF) at the base. The regional

In 2021, the U.S. Geological Survey will collect water-quality samples and environmental data from 3 sites in Koocanusa Reservoir and from 1 site in the Kootenai River. The transboundary Koocanusa Reservoir is in southeastern British Columbia, Canada, and northwestern Montana, United States, and was formed with the construction of Libby Dam on the Kootenai River 26 kilometers upstream from Libby,

Fish communities of the Mohawk River and associated sections of the New York State Canal System have been well documented but little information is available regarding the status of fish communities in the extensive network of tributaries that feed the Mohawk River. This lack of information is problematic because changes in species distributions or general ecosystem health may go unnoticed in the

While recent efforts to catalogue Earth’s microbial diversity have focused upon surface and marine habitats, 12–20 % of Earth’s biomass is suggested to exist in the terrestrial deep subsurface, compared to ~1.8 % in the deep subseafloor. Metagenomic studies of the terrestrial deep subsurface have yielded a trove of divergent and functionally important microbiomes from a range of localities. Howeve

Chloramination is being used increasingly in water treatment to lower the formation of regulated disinfection byproducts (DBPs). How monochloramine nitrogen becomes incorporated into aquatic natural organic matter (NOM) and potentially affects the formation of nitrogenous DBPs is an unresolved question in the chemistry of humic substances. To address the problem, Suwannee River NOM and Suwannee Ri

Introduction The U.S. Geological Survey’s online Water Science School is a one-stop shop for water education resources. In addition to sharing images, data, and diagrams, the Water Science School provides lesson plans for teachers as well as multiple interactive activities for students, such as questionnaires, calculators, and quizzes. This bookmark introduces Drippy, the Water Science School masc

Quantifying seepage losses from unlined irrigation canals is necessary to improve water use and conservation. The use of heat as a tracer is widely used in quantifying seepage rates across the sediment–water interface. In this study, field observations and two-dimensional numerical models were used to simulate seepage losses during the 2018 and 2019 irrigation season in the Truckee Canal system. N

In the United States and globally, contaminant exposure in unregulated private-well point-of-use tapwater (TW) is a recognized public-health data gap and an obstacle to both risk-management and homeowner decision making. To help address the lack of data on broad contaminant exposures in private-well TW from hydrologically-vulnerable (alluvial, karst) aquifers in agriculturally-intensive landscapes

Terminal channels were historically a common feature of tidal delta ecosystems but have become increasingly rare as landscapes have been modified. Tidal hydrodynamics are a defining feature in tidal terminal channel ecosystems from which native aquatic communities have evolved. However, few studies have explored the relationship between fish community structure and hydrodynamics in these tidal ter

Groundwater is the primary source of drinking water in the Coachella Valley in the desert region of southern California. Although most people in Coachella Valley are served by public drinking-water systems, about 20,000 people rely on private domestic or small-system wells (referred to herein as domestic wells). Recently, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) found that 39 percent of the groundwater r