Terence Messinger (Former Employee)

Large-scale surface mining using valley fills has changed hydrologic storage and processes in the Ballard Fork Watershed in West Virginia. Total unit flow for the 2-year study period (November 15, 1999?November 14, 2001) on the Unnamed Tributary (extensively mined) (11,700 cubic feet per second per square mile) was almost twice that on Spring Branch (unmined) (6,260 cubic feet per second...

Giardia and enteric viruses were detected in a reconnaissance study of Madam Creek and Dunloup Creek, two tributaries of the New River Gorge National River, in 2000. Cryptosporidium and pathogenic bacteria were not detected in these tributaries. The two streams were identified in previous studies as consistently having some of the highest indicator-bacteria concentrations among New River...

The effects of selected environmental factors on the composition and structure of benthic invertebrate communities in the Kanawha River Basin of West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina were investigated in 1997 and 1998. Environmental factors investigated include physiography, land-use pattern, streamwater chemistry, streambed- sediment chemistry, and habitat characteristics. Land-use...

Stream size and zoogeography affected species composition and relative abundance of fish communities more than water-quality effects of land uses among the 21 sites sampled in West Virginia and Virginia. Most commonly-used fish metrics based on counts of species were significantly greater in sites downstream from Kanawha Falls (an important barrier to fish movement) than in sites...

The Kanawha River and its major tributary, the New River, drain 12,233 mi2 in West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina. Altitude ranges from about 550 ft to more than 4,700 ft. The Kanawha River Basin is mountainous, and includes parts of three physiographic provinces, the Blue Ridge (17 percent), Valley and Ridge (23 percent), and Appalachian Plateaus (60 percent). In the Appalachian...

This report summarizes major findings about water quality in the Kanawha-New River basin that emerged from an assessment conducted between 1996 and 1998 by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Program. Water quality is discussed in terms of local and regional issues and compared to conditions found in all 36 NAWQA study areas assessed to date...

This report contains water-quality data for the Ohio River from river mile 51.1 (3.3 miles upstream from New Cumberland Dam) to river mile 84.0 (0.2 miles upstream from Pike Island Dam) that were collected during the summer and fall of 1993. The data were collected to establish the water quality of the Ohio River and to use in assessing the proposed effects of hydropower development on...