Robert W Black

The Issue: Puget Sound watershed nutrient loads are known to have an impact on marine water quality along with wastewater treatment plants discharging to Puget Sound. To effectively reduce and control nutrient loads to the Sound, the Washington State Department of Ecology needs a regional watershed model that fits within their Puget Sound Nutrient Source Reduction Project’s management framework...

The issue: Agriculture and irrigation are major forces in Central Washington. Intensive land and water management practices may lead to water quality issues. In the Central Columbia Plateau and Yakima River Basin (CCYK), water quality issues include high nutrient loading resulting in eutrophication, elevated concentrations of water-soluble pesticides, and elevated concentrations of organochlorine...

The Puget Sound Basin (PUGT) study unit of the National Water Quality Assessment (NAWQA) program encompasses a 13,700-square-mile area that drains to Puget Sound and adjacent marine waters. Included in this region are all or part of 13 counties in western Washington, as well as the headwaters of the Skagit River and part of the Nooksack River in British Columbia, Canada. The Puget Sound Basin...

The Issue: Links between nitrate application to the land surface and measured nitrate concentrations in groundwater or surface water are poorly understood in the Yakima River basin due to the variety of potential nitrate sources. Fertilizer-intensive irrigated agriculture has been prevalent in the basin for decades, and since 1994 the growth of dairy operations has resulted in numerous liquid...

The Issue: The State of Washington issues Municipal Stormwater Permits to local governments in the Puget Sound region that require them to develop and implement a stormwater management program that reduces the discharge of pollutants and protects the quality of water in rivers, streams, lakes and Puget Sound. The permitees in partnership with the State need to measure whether water quality and...

The Issue: Federal and state natural resource managers and Tribes are concerned with the environmental impacts from unintentional release of coal dust from train cars during transport through the Northwest. Proposed new coal export terminals in Washington and Oregon would substantially increase rail traffic through the Northwest and the release of coal dust to the environment. How USGS will help...

The White River Basin is located in western Washington and drains an area of about 500 square miles. Rivers in the White River Basin are fed by melt water from glaciers on Mt. Rainier, runoff from snowmelt and rain, and groundwater discharge. Beginning in the early to mid-twentieth century, the White River from river mile (RM) 9 to its confluence with the Puyallup River was extensively channelized...

Evaluation of Juvenile Trout Microarray Tools in the Development of an Ambient Monitoring Approach for Urban Streams

The objective of this study was to determine why certain stream insects tend to be found in certain temperature ranges. Many federal, state and local agencies use stream insects to monitor the health of freshwater ecosystems. While the temperature ranges for some insects are often inferred from the temperature of the waters where they were collected, this inference is coarse at best and problemati

In the past, levees have been built along the river banks of the Puyallup River to prevent floodwater from damaging roads, buildings, farms, and other areas in the floodplain. Because levees can worsen flooding by creating backwater effects or reducing floodplain storage, Pierce County is planning to remove current levees and build new ones further away from the river channels. To help Pierce...

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), in its 2000 Biological Opinion for the Columbia Basin Irrigation Project (CBIP) in eastern Washington, asked for a determination of whether pesticides are present in irrigation return flows at levels that may harm or adversely affect salmon and steelhead species listed for protection under the Endangered Species Act. As the major resource manager of...

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is developing a rule requiring States to have a formal plan for the pesticides atrazine, simazine, alachlor, metolachlor, and other pesticides of concern in order to continue using them. The Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA), the lead agency for a pesticide plan for Washington, will need an assessment of ground-water vulnerability to...