The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Baltimore District, has been conducting biological surveys of the inflow and outflow streams of Whitney Point Lake since the early 1980's. These surveys are made to identify possible detrimental effects as well as benefits of the reservoir and to better understand the aquatic communities in the vicinity of the lake at the present and over time. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Geological Survey jointly conducted a survey of the fish communities upstream and downstream of the reservoir in Otselic River in September 2000. The fish communities upstream and downstream were compared and any differences or similarities seen in the communities were noted.
This study found the fish communities upstream and downstream of Whitney Point Lake to be in good condition, with Index of Biotic Integrity (IBI) scores 4.3 upstream and 4.5 downstream. The habitat conditions of both reaches were of suboptimal quality, with a score of 15 for both reaches as determined by use of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Rapid Bioassessment Protocols, yet are capable of supporting fish communities. The Shannon Index was 3.83 upstream and 3.16 downstream of the lake, indicating that both reaches are slightly impacted by species richness and lack of individual evenness among the species. The communities also were different from each other. Only 11 of the 21 species upstream were also captured downstream. The Jaccards Coefficient and the Index of Similarity reflect this community difference with scores of 0.39 and 0.56, respectively.
