Publications

Throughout California, as pressure on water resources continues to grow, water-supply agencies are looking to the state?s biggest ?reservoir? ? its ground-water basins ? for supply and storage. To better utilize that resource, the Sweetwater Authority and other local partners, including the city of San Diego and Otay Water Districts, are working with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to...

Contamination of public-supply wells has resulted in public-health threats and negative economic effects for communities that must treat contaminated water or find alternative water supplies. To investigate factors controlling vulnerability of public-supply wells to anthropogenic and natural contaminants using consistent and systematic data collected in a variety of principal aquifer...

Selected ground-water level hydrographs for the Yakima River basin aquifer system, Washington, are presented in an interactive web-based map to illustrate the existence or lack of trends in ground-water levels and, thus, potential variations in ground-water availability in the area. Hydrographs are linked to points corresponding to the well location on an interactive map of the study...

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Region VI of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), and the Osage Nation presented three 3-day workshops, in June-August 2007, entitled ?Introduction to Field Water-Quality Methods for the Collection of Metals.? The purpose of the workshops was to provide instruction to tribes within USEPA Region VI on various USGS surface-water measurement...

Thermal profiles (data sets of longitudinal near-streambed temperature) that provide information on areas of potential ground-water discharge and salmonid habitat for 11 river reaches in the Yakima River basin, Washington, are available as Microsoft Excel? files that can be downloaded from the Internet. Two reaches were profiled twice resulting in 13 profiles. Data were collected for all...

Future municipal water demand was estimated for the Bedford, Coffee, Marshall, and Maury-southern Williamson water-service areas in the upper Duck River watershed in central Tennessee through 2030. The Duck River, a primary source of municipal water, provided a total of 24.3 million gallons per day (Mgal/d) or 92 percent of the total water use in the study area during 2000. Municipal...

A study was done by the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the city of Grain Valley, Jackson County, Missouri, to simulate the hydraulic characteristics of Sni-A-Bar Creek and selected tributaries within the corporate limits. The 10-, 50-, 100-, and 500-year recurrence interval streamflows were simulated to determine potential backwater effects on the Sni-A-Bar Creek main stem...

Lake Arrowhead is a reservoir about 24 kilometers southeast of Wichita Falls, Texas, that provides drinking water for the city of Wichita Falls and surrounding areas. The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the City of Wichita Falls, did a study in 2006 to assess conditions contributing to elevated arsenic concentrations in Lake Arrowhead. This report describes the sampling and...

The primary purpose of the study described in this report was to determine if the fungicide chlorothalonil (2,4,5,6-tetrachloroisophthalonitrile), three of its transformation products, or selected other pesticides are transported to surface water after use on peanuts or other crops in Texas and Oklahoma. The results summarized here are part of a larger study that includes data from sites...

In 1991, a 76-mile reach of the Niobrara River in north-central Nebraska was designated as a National Scenic River (NSR). This reach of the river hosts a unique ecosystem that provides habitat for a diverse fish and wildlife population that include several threatened and endangered species. The Niobrara NSR also is a popular destination for campers, canoeists, kayakers, and tubers...

Muddy Creek is located in the southeastern part of central Utah and is a tributary of the Dirty Devil River, which, in turn, is a tributary of the Colorado River. Dissolved solids transported from the Muddy Creek Basin may be stored in the lower Dirty Devil River Basin, but are eventually discharged to the Colorado River and impact downstream water users. This study used selected...

Weekly composite high-volume air and wet-only deposition samples were collected from April through September 1995 at paired urban and agricultural areas in Mississippi, Iowa, and Minnesota, and at a background site in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. This report describes the methods used to collect, analyze, and quality assure the samples, and presents the results of all chemical analyses...