Wyoming’s Department of Environmental Quality Water Monitoring Program Implements Statewide Water Quality Study

By Kimberly Mazza, Jeremy Zumberge, and Eric Hargett

Statewide - Since 2010, the Surface Water Monitoring Program at the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) Water Quality Division has been engaged in a study to understand the overall water quality condition of perennial streams and rivers throughout Wyoming.

For the research to be on a more granular scale, the team divided their study into five regional surveys based on the location of the State's major basins. In each region, 50 sites would be monitored for a total of 250 sites for the entire state-wide study.

The first survey was in Northwest Wyoming in 2010 and encompassed the Bighorn and Yellowstone basins.

In 2011 the focus was on basins in Northeast Wyoming - the Tongue, Powder, Cheyenne, Little Missouri, and Belle Fourche basins.

The Green River basin was studied in 2015 with the North and South Platte and Niobrara basins monitored in 2016.

In 2021 the research focused on the Bear and Snake basins. In the same year, a valuable offshoot from the Bear/Snake study incorporated both the Utah and Idaho DEQs in a separate, tri-state study specifically for the Bear River basin.

The Monitoring Program initiated this study to not only evaluate water quality conditions of all the state's waters but to also establish a baseline to evaluate water quality trends over time, identify high-quality waters, and waters that may not be meeting Wyoming surface water quality standards.

Jeremy ZumBerge is the Supervisor for the Surface Water Monitoring Program and the lead for the study. "This study provides an objective way of looking at overall water quality conditions for the State without having to do a census or, in other words, monitor every single stream in Wyoming," he says.

Nonetheless, the study is not an easy task. According to Jeremy, the sampling alone took about one year for each of the five basins and is just one piece of the study. Other stages include evaluating potential study sites, gathering the data from the laboratory, doing data quality review, then building the analysis for each basin, followed by development of a report on the findings for each basin.

"These are big surveys, which require a great deal of time along with all the other work we do at the WQD," he says. "For these reasons, the study was implemented over several years."

Eric Hargett, Assistant Supervisor for the Surface Water Monitoring Program played an important role in the study and noted how this has been a real team effort with everyone in the monitoring program pitching in.

"A lot of work goes into what is referred to as 'pre-monitoring evaluation' where randomly selected sites are generated by a computer algorithm in accordance with our study design for the basin. It's up to monitoring staff to determine if those sites can be sampled. If any of the sampleable sites are on private lands, then access permission will need to be obtained. Additionally, other state and federal permits must be obtained when required. Then there's the logistics of planning and scheduling the crews to go out and sample. A lot of work is done even before you get into sampling."

Eric Hargett and Cherie Cassavar of the DEQ Monitoring Program process an aquatic invertebrate sample from Antelope Creek near Cokeville during the 2021 Bear-Snake Survey.

Once a targeted basin is established, the team will use many tools to research whether the randomly selected sites are sampleable - Google Maps, aerial photography, institutional knowledge, visiting with landowners and our state, federal, and local partners such as the Wyoming Game and Fish, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Bureau of Land Management, and conservation districts.

"Every randomly selected site needs to be evaluated for monitoring suitability," notes Eric. "In some instances, it can appear to be a stream, but in actuality turns out to be a ditch which is not part of the survey design. Is it accessible, can we get there safely, will landowners give us permission to get to it? Is it even flowing, or has it dried up? There are a lot of variables that play into the success of the monitoring and making sure the site meets our study design criteria."

Once the "pre-monitoring evaluation" has been completed in each basin, the team begins monitoring that typically spans from June to October. This involves a standard suite of water chemistry and physical parameters as well as collecting aquatic insects to evaluate the biological condition. Bugs that live in water are identified and counted and compared to what would be expected to be there. This is a common practice used by many states throughout the nation to serve as a long-term indicator of water quality and the overall health of the aquatic community.

"Identifying the bugs from streams that are not as impacted by human disturbance creates a reference expectation that we can use to assess conditions in other similar streams. When we expect to have certain insects there, and those insects are not present or in lower-than-expected numbers, this tells us a story about the condition," says Eric.

"We look at the relative departure of the aquatic insect community from the reference expectation and evaluate the degree of departure. In other words, the greater the departure, it can be inferred, the greater the human impact."

These results provide a reliable baseline. However, the biological condition is just part of the research. Additionally, a suite of pollutants will be evaluated. If a percentage of streams in a certain area of a basin are not doing well biologically and also have elevated levels of particular pollutants, that information can help narrow the list of possible pollutants that may be causing that low biological condition.

"For example," says Jeremy, "if there are high phosphorus levels in an area that has low biological condition, that's a pretty strong indication that phosphorus is likely negatively influencing aquatic life. From there we may do a "targeted assessment.*"

Mike Wachtendonk of the DEQ Monitoring Program surveys a cross-section on Porcupine Creek, a tributary of the Smith Fork, during the 2021 Bear-Snake Survey.

Once the basin has been sampled, the data is collected, reviewed, and uploaded into the database. Eric does the majority of the statistical analysis, with other team members helping by building maps, putting together tables, entering figures into GIS, researching, and writing about the environmental settings of the basin such as the land uses and topographical features.

Jeremy, who did much of the analytical writing, says the water conditions vary from basin to basin, but overall, Wyoming has more waters in good condition than in poor condition uniformly across the state.

"Part of this study is comparing the biological condition of our streams in Wyoming to national estimates. And, we in fact look really good compared to the rest of the country. Although areas with potential water quality issues have been identified with the study, it's obvious that we have a much higher percentage of streams uniformly across the state in good biological condition, relative to the rest of the nation."

Four of the five surveys are available to read and are available on the DEQ's website at https://deq.wyoming.gov/water-quality/watershed-protection/surface-water-monitoring/ under the Publications tab The fifth one, and the tri-state Bear River basin assessment are working towards completion and will be publicly available in the future.

*Targeted assessments can take a minimum of two-years and have a focus to determine water quality standard attainment. These assessments are non-randomized studies that target specific streams or watersheds, potential pollutants of concern and their sources. Conclusions from these types of studies generally inform Wyoming's Integrated 305(b) and 303(d) Report. (https://deq.wyoming.gov/water-quality/watershed-protection/water-quality-assessment/ under Reports tab)

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