Peter C Van Metre (Former Employee)

Shallow ground water beneath the Puerco River of Arizona and New Mexico was studied to determine the effects of uranium-mining releases on water quality. Ground-water samples collected from 1989 to 1991 indicate that concentrations of dissolved uranium have decreased. Most samples from the alluvial aquifer downstream from Gallup, New Mexico, met with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency...

Water-quality trends reflect the relation between water quality and human activities, chronicling changes in concentrations of environmental contaminants, introduction of new contaminants, and successful efforts in environmental pollution remediation. Historical data available for analyzing trends often have severe limitations, from questionable accuracy to unknown sampling and analytic

White Rock Lake reservoir in Dallas, Texas contains a 150-cm sediment record of silty clay that documents land-use changes since its construction in 1912. Pollen analysis corroborates historical evidence that between 1912 and 1950 the watershed was primarily agricultural. Land disturbance by plowing coupled with strong and variable spring precipitation caused large amounts of sediment to...

Historical trends in selected water-quality variables from 1912 to 1994 in White Rock Creek Basin were identified by dated sediment cores from White Rock Lake. White Rock Lake is a 4.4-km2 reservoir filled in 1912 and located on the north side of Dallas, Texas, with a drainage area of 259 km2. Agriculture dominated land use in White Rock Creek Basin before about 1950. By 1990, 72% of the...

Mountain Creek Lake is a reservoir adjacent to two U.S. Department of the Navy facilities, the Naval Weapons Industrial Reserve Plant and the Naval Air Station in Dallas, Texas. A Resource Conservation and Recovery Act Facility Investigation found ground-water plumes containing chlorinated solvents on both facilities. These findings led to a U.S. Geological Survey study of Mountain Creek...

This study used chemical analyses of dated sediment cores from reservoirs to define historical trends in water quality in the influent river basins. This work applies techniques from paleolimnology to reservoirs, and in the process, highlights differences between sediment-core interpretations for reservoirs and natural lakes. Sediment cores were collected from six reservoirs in the...

No abstract available.

The U.S. Geological Survey National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Program has three objectives, one of which is "to define trends (or lack of trends) in water quality" (Leahy and others, 1990). Water-quality trends are of interest for at least three reasons: First, trends can improve our understanding of the influence of human activities on water-quality conditions; second, trends can...

Chemical analyses were done on cores of bottom sediment from three locations in Lake Livingston, a reservoir on the Trinity River in east Texas to identify trends in water quality in the Trinity River using the chemical record preserved in bottom sediments trapped by the reservoir. Sediment cores spanned the period from 1969, when the reservoir was impounded, to 1992, when the cores were...

Gross-beta activity has been used as an indicator of beta-emitting isotopes in water since at least the early 1950s. Originally designed for detection of radioactive releases from nuclear facilities and weapons tests, analysis of gross-beta activity is widely used in studies of naturally occurring radioactivity in ground water. Analyses of about 800 samples from 5 ground-water regions of...

The U.S. Geological Survey is conducting an assessment of water quality in the Trinity River Basin as part of the National Water-Quality Assessment Program. During the planning phase of this study, existing information on nutrients and suspended sediment was compiled and analyzed. A total of about 5,700 water-quality samples were analyzed from local, State, and Federal agencies. Of these...

In 1991 the Trinity River Basin National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) will include assessments of surface-water and ground-water quality. Initial efforts have focused on identifying water-quality issues in the basin and on the environmental factors underlying those issues. Physical characteristics described include climate, geology, soils, vegetation, physiography, and hydrology...