>>ANNOUNCER: More than eight hundred people with one mission:
promoting a healthy environment.
We are the West Virignia Department of Environmental Protection.
>>GREG: Measuring the water quality and biological health of West Virginia's
rivers and streams is the job of a team of geologists, biologists, engineers and
environmental scientists -
the Department of Environmental Protection's Watershed Assessment Branch
and
as the DEP's Mike Huff found out recently, it's all about knowing where to
look for clues.
>>MIKE: It might look like Jeff Bailey is panning for gold but
what he's looking for is actually far more valuable when it comes to determing
stream health -
benthic macro invertebrates, or as they're most commonly known - bugs.
>>JEFF BAILEY: a lot of people recognize the name mayflies,
stoneflies, caddis flies, midges, crayfish... THose are all
the organisms that live on the bottom of the stream.
>>NICK MURRAY: Where they are of relegated to living solely in the stream.
They did they do not have the ability to get out of the water quality issues
for any water quality variations that occur. therefore you know work audio variations that occur will cause an
impact on the benthic macroinvertebrate population
and then that based on what we see as far as the numbers,
that diversity can help us get ideas as to what the water quality is like
throughout the course of an entire year or multiple past years.
>>MIKE: Jeff Bailey and Nick Murray are part of the DEP's
Watershed Assessment Branch.
They, along with the rest the team
are surveying this small tributary in the Cabin Creek watershed.
team checks water chemistry
and physical habitat of the stream -
looking at fish and insect populations and checking for things like pH,
conductivity, sediment
and dissolved oxygen levels.
They're looking for problems upstream that could affect water quality downstream.
>>JEFF: At all these small headwater streams
cumulatively make up what's going on downstream in the biggest streams so if you're
had a lot of problems in your headwater streams, you're going to have problems
downstream in the bigger rivers and streams that most people recognize is
being
a river that they can fish in or swim in or get water from...
something like that..
so it's real important to
to have good water quality from the start. >>MIKE: The team spends most this time in the
field from early spring through mid fall
gathering samples for analysis back at the lab
what they learn goes into a growing database of information that
helps scientists track overall watershed health from year to year.
>>NICK: We can look it different watersheds throughout the state
and expect to see different invertebrate populations and we get to
the site and we don't find such populations then we can usually tie that back to
some form of habitat disturbance or water quality related disturbance.
>>MIKE: And if a stream isn't meeting
water quality standards, a clean up plan called the total maximum daily load or
TMDL is developed.
The TMDL plan identifies the source of the pollution and develops a strategy
for containing, reducing or eliminating it.
Along the Upper Kanawha watershed,
I'm Mike Huff for Environment MAtters.
>>GREG: West Virginia is divided into thirty two major watersheds.
Volunteers will once again take to the banks of the Kanawha River in September to
help clean up
last year more than one hundred volunteers collected roughly
three-and-a-half tons of litter
The DEP's REAP program
supplies volunteers with trash bags and gloves and arranges for the litter to be hauled
away.
This will be the twenty third year for the cleanup.
Groups will be working at sites in Fayette, Kanawha and Putnam counties.
This year's Kanawha River Sweep
will take place on September 8th.
If you live near a dam, especially downstream from one, how safe it is can
be a major concern.
That's why the DEP recently sponsored a one-day workshop for owners and monitors
of dams.
The workshop, held back on August 11th in Berkeley Springs,
focused on state regulations and dam owner responsibilities and liabilities
as well as things like maintenance issues what causes dams to fail
and how to develop in emergency action plan.
To find out more about how the DEP regulates non-coal impoundment dams
you can visit our website dep dot w v dot gov and click on the water and waste
management inspection and enforcement link.
Coming up: the big thank you to the volunteers who make a lot cleanup efforts
possible. And now here's a look at some upcoming events.