Images

Cement-lined channels such as this one in a section of the Kinnickinnic River at 11th Street in Milwaukee are slowly being removed in stream rehabilitation efforts. Water chemistry remains important, and this channel shows abundant algal growth from excess nutrients and abundant sunlight.

Many small farms in the Corn Belt state of the Midwest also have confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs). These CAFOs can be a source of nitrogen to receiving small streams. The USGS Regional Stream Quality Assessment (RSQA) investigated the water quality of small streams across the Midwest during 2013.

Micro-samplers are sophisticated instruments that collect small "sips" of water at frequent intervals.  The samples, collected every few hours, provide a picture of how rapidly water quality can change over time.  These samples were analyzed for a suite of hundreds of pesticides.  In 2013, the USGS Regional Stream Quality Assessment (

Micro-samplers are sophisticated instruments that collect small "sips" of water at designated intervals.  Installing one during high water conditions is a tricky business.  The samples, collected every few hours, provide a picture of how rapidly water quality can change over time.  These samples were analyzed for a suite of hundreds of pesticides.&nbs

A USGS hydrologist and hydrologic technician install a microsampler in an urban creek in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The microsampler allows collection of a sample "sip" every 6 hours; the sips are composited into a daily sample. Collection of daily samples revealed the presence of more pesticides and higher concentrations than manual samples collected weekly.

USGS Water towers at Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center

An example stream reach of Underwood Creek’s concrete lined channel before rehabilitation in 2012.

Fish are identified and counted in the field, and game fish are measured for total length and weighed, before being released live back to the stream site.

This streamgage is one of two USGS gages collecting streamflow and water-quality information for a paired-watershed project in Sheboygan County, Wis.

A lip tumor diagnosed as a papilloma on a white sucker (Catostomus commersonii) collected from the Milwaukee River.

This study identified typical ranges and magnitudes, temporal distributions, and principle factors affecting concentrations and yields of sediment, nutrients, and other constituents in runoff from agricultural fields. The drawing shows water flowing through an agricultural environment.

Lock and Dam 7 Panorama

The Lake Michigan Mass Balance Project measured and modeled concentrations of persistent contaminants in air, water sediment, and fish and bird tissues in and around Lake Michigan. This report provided an updated concentration data and load estimates for nutrients, mercury, and PCBs.

Changes in water quality in urban areas may present themselves in conspicuous ways – such as murky or stinky stream water. They may also present themselves in less conspicuous ways – such as fewer native or pollution sensitive organisms.  This drawing is a conglomeration of streams studied in the Milwaukee, WI area.

A section of Lincoln Creek where streambank rehabilitation was completed in 2002, with USGS streamflow equipment in the foreground.

This image shows benthic biofilms growing in Wilson Park at 13th Street, Milwaukee.

Three neotropical birds (Left to right: Magnolia warbler, Wilson's warbler, Canada warbler - all males) that were cought in mist net for banding

USGS monitoring station on Menomonee River at 70th Street.

The continuously bubbling water at the Frederick Springs sand boil at Pheasant Branch Conservatory in Middleton, Wis., is created groundwater flowing up through cracks in the overlying rock and sand.

Road-salt storage at Jones Island (Milwaukee Harbor, February 2004) underscores increasing salt usage and increasing concerns about the effects of overuse on waterways.

Example completed filled in Wisconsin District Mercury Laboratory Request for Analysis form.