Reports

Introduction and Objectives: Sylvatic plague, a zoonotic flea-borne disease, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, is relevant to the Department of Defense (DOD), because prairie dogs and other susceptible rodents are present on military installations in several western states. Arthropod-borne diseases, like plague, are thought to be particularly sensitive to local climate conditions...

The addition of surface water from the San Juan-Chama Drinking Water Project to the Albuquerque water supply and the reduction in per capita water use has led to decreased groundwater withdrawals. This decrease in withdrawals has resulted in rising groundwater levels since 2008 in portions of the aquifer underlying Albuquerque. The wells used to assess the Kirtland Air Force Base Bulk...

The U.S. Geological Survey Western Ecological Research Center’s Santa Cruz Field Station, Santa Cruz, California, has been funded by the U.S. Navy to continue monitoring a suite of intertidal black abalone sites at San Nicolas Island, California. The nine rocky intertidal sites were established in 1980 by Glenn VanBlaricom (then of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) to study the...

Industrial and commercial developments in western North Dakota potentially could affect the sources of water that contribute to wells, spring flow, and seeps within Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Without basic water resources data, accurately predicting the effects of water withdrawals and water quality concerns related to industrial and commercial developments near the park would be

The U.S. Geological Survey, in partnership with The Nature Conservancy, analyzed existing water-quality and streamflow data from three locations in the Upper White River Basin, Indiana, to estimate annual mean concentrations and fluxes and to identify and quantify changes in water quality and streamflow over time. Water-quality data used in the analyses were collected between water years...

A total of 14 wadable streams in urban or urbanizing watersheds near Milwaukee, Wisconsin, were sampled in 2004, 2007, 2010, and 2013 to assess the ecological status of aquatic communities (biota), including benthic algae and invertebrates, and fish. To assess temporal variation, additional community sampling was also done at a subset of three sites in 2011 and 2012. Relative abundances...

Environmental groundwater-quality data were collected from 648 wells as part of the National Water-Quality Assessment Project of the U.S. Geological Survey National Water-Quality Program and are included in this report. Most of the wells (514) were sampled from January through December 2016, and 60 of them were sampled in 2013 and 74 in 2014. The data were collected from seven types of...

We acquired multiple types of seismic data across the Hollywood Fault in Hollywood, Calif., and the Santa Monica Fault in Beverly Hills, Calif., in May and June 2018. On the basis of our data, we infer near-surface locations of various traces of these faults. From two separate profiles across the Hollywood Fault, we evaluated multiple seismic datasets and models, including guided-wave...

Studies of naturally occurring subsurface carbon dioxide (CO2) accumulations can provide useful information for potential CO2 injection projects; however, the microbial communities and formation water geochemistry of most reservoirs are understudied. Formation water and microbial biomass were sampled at four CO2-rich reservoir sites: two within Bravo Dome, a commercial CO2 field in New...

Manure and wastewater from large livestock operations have the potential to negatively affect surface water and groundwater, including the eutrophication of surface waters and harmful algal blooms. In the Western Lake Erie Basin, where there is a high density of animal agriculture, harmful algal blooms have been attributed, in part, to phosphorus loading from dairy manure and fertilizer

An existing two-dimensional, steady-state groundwater-flow model of the shallow groundwater-flow system of the Lac du Flambeau Reservation in Vilas County, Wisconsin, originally developed by the U.S. Geological Survey, was used to simulate the potential for wastewater from a proposed relocation of a wastewater lagoon to contaminate the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa’s...

A key component of evaluating the success of habitat remediation projects is determining preremediation conditions, biotic and abiotic, to establish a baseline and compare with postproject conditions. The Rouge River, Michigan, is a Great Lakes Area of Concern with a listed Beneficial Use Impairment related to loss of fish and wildlife habitat. A biological and habitat assessment was...