Publications

Where Walnut Creek flows across the South Skunk River alluvial aquifer, it provides a potential source of herbicides and herbicide metabolites. This straightened reach of the creek loses water and dissolved contaminants to the alluvial aquifer through a layer of fine-grained flood plain deposits. Estimates of potential flux of chemicals were based on measurements taken during baseflow in...

Agrichemicals (herbicides and nitrate) are significant sources of diffuse pollution to groundwater. Indirect methods are needed to assess the potential for groundwater contamination by diffuse sources because groundwater monitoring is too costly to adequately define the geographic extent of contamination at a regional or national scale. This paper presents examples of the application of

The toxicity of an acid mixing zone produced at the confluence of a stream that was contaminated by acid mine drainage (AMD) and a pH-neutral stream was investigated in toxicity tests with juvenile bluegill Lepomis macrochirus and largemouth bass Micropterus salmoides. Fish mortalities in instream cages located in the mixing zone, below the mixing zone, and upstream in both tributaries...

Anthropogenic selenium contamination of aquatic ecosystems was first associated with cooling reservoirs of coal-fired power plants in the late 1970s, and later with drainage water from agricultural irrigation activities in the 1980s. In the 1990s, selenium contamination has been raised as a concern in the recovery of currently endangered fish in the Colorado River system. Widespread...

Benthic macroinvertebrates with elevated concentrations of metals were collected from the Coeur d'Alene (CDA) River, Idaho, pasteurized, and fed to cutthroat trout Oncorhynchus clarki in the laboratory from start of feeding until 90 d posthatch. Invertebrates were collected from two sites known to contain elevated concentrations of metals: near Pinehurst in the South Fork of the CDA...

Review of: Wetland restoration: Flood pulsing and disturbance dynamics / Beth Middleton / John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 6705 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158. 1999. 388 pages. ISBN 0-471-29263-X.

A device that uses a siphon tube to establish a hydraulic connection between the bottom of an onshore standpipe and a point at the bottom of a water body was designed and tested for monitoring surface-water levels. Water is added to the standpipe to a level sufficient to drive a complete slug of water through the siphoning tube and to flush all air out of the system. The water levels in...

The intense application of nitrogen-fertilizer to cropland in the midwestern United States has created concern about nitrate contamination of the region's aquifers. Since 1991, the US Geological Survey has used a network of 303 wells to investigate the regional distribution of nitrate in near-surface aquifers of the midwestern United States. Detailed land use and soil data were compiled...

Information on the concentrations and spatial distributions of pesticides and their transformation products, or degradates, in the hydrologic system is essential for managing pesticide use in both agricultural and nonagricultural settings to protect water resources. This report examines the occurrence of selected herbicides and their degradates in ground water, primarily on the basis of...

Water-quality data from 17 surface-water monitoring sites were compiled for 1970 through 1995 and analyzed to determine historical waterquality conditions and possible trends in the Eastern Iowa Basins study unit as part of the U.S. Geological Survey's National Water-Quality Assessment Program. The Eastern Iowa Basins encompasses the Wapsipinicon, Cedar, Iowa, and Skunk River Basins and...

The Contaminant Hazard Review (CHR) series--sponsored by the U.S. Geological Survey, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center--synthesizes ecotoxicological data for selected environmental contaminants, with emphasis on hazards to native species of flora and fauna. From 1985 through 1998, 34 reviews were published in various report series of the U.S. Department of the Interior on agricultural...

The 2,300-acre Lisbon Bottom Unit, located in central Missouri, became part of the Big Muddy National Fish and Wildlife Refuge (NFWR) after the Great Flood of 1993 devastated the Unit's farmland and network of levees. As a result, interdisciplinary studies were initiated through collaboration among various researches, universities, and State and Federal conservation agencies to...