Filters: Extensions: Project (X) > partyWithName: New York State Energy Research Development Authority (X) > partyWithName: New York Water Science Center (X)
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Background The Upper Esopus Creek, a popular trout-fishing and recreational stream in the heart of the Catskill Mountains, received historic flooding from Tropical Storm Irene on August 28, 2011. Streamflows approached or surpassed the 1% annual exceedance probability (>100 year) flood levels at several USGS streamgages in this basin. Short-term flood impacts on biological assemblages have been assessed in several studies, but longer-term effects, recovery, and analysis of factors affecting ecosystem resiliency have rarely been investigated. The U. S. Geological Survey (USGS), New York City Department of Environmental Protection (NYCDEP), and Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ulster County (CCEUC) collaborated on...
Categories: Data,
Project;
Types: Downloadable,
Map Service,
OGC WFS Layer,
OGC WMS Layer,
Shapefile;
Tags: Completed,
Cooperative Water Program,
Flood Inundation,
Flood Inundation,
Flood Inundation,
Background Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is the hereditary material in organisms that contains the biological instructions for building and maintaining them. The chemical structure of DNA is the same for all organisms, but differences exist in the order of the DNA building blocks, known as base pairs. Unique sequences provide a means to identify individual species and detect their presence within aquatic or terrestrial environments. Environmental DNA (eDNA) is nuclear or mitochondrial DNA that is shed from an organism into the environment. Sources of eDNA include feces, mucous, and gametes; shed skin; and carcasses. In aquatic environments, eDNA is diluted and distributed by currents and other hydrological processes....
Categories: Data,
Project;
Types: Downloadable,
Map Service,
OGC WFS Layer,
OGC WMS Layer,
Shapefile;
Tags: Adirondacks,Adirondack Mountains,
Aquatic Community Health,
Aquatic Community Health,
Aquatic Community Health,
Completed,
INTRODUCTION Naturally occurring methane has been noted at some locations in the upper Devonian shale bedrock and in overlying glacial deposits in parts of Broome, Tioga, and Chemung Counties in south-central New York State (Williams, 2010). Systematic sampling of water wells for dissolved methane is needed to determine if the topographic and hydrogeologic setting of a well is related to methane occurrence. Objective and Study Area - The objective of this study is to characterize the natural occurrence of dissolved methane gas in groundwater from water wells within four different topographic and hydrogeologic settings (upland and major valley areas where bedrock is confined or unconfined by glacial deposits)....
Categories: Data,
Project;
Types: Downloadable,
Map Service,
OGC WFS Layer,
OGC WMS Layer,
Shapefile;
Tags: Broome County,
Chemung County,
Completed,
Contaminants, Natural,
Contaminants, Natural,
Summary The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Long Term Monitoring (LTM) network has supported the collection of stream chemistry data in the Catskills since the 1990s. Trends in stream chemistry have periodically been evaluated in these streams but the most recent assessments only extend through the early 2000s. An updated assessment of stream chemistry trends will help evaluate the effects of recent substantial declines in acid deposition during the last decade. This study will evaluate changes in surface water chemistry from 1991 through 2013 at 5 stations in the Neversink and Rondout watersheds in the Catskill Mountains of New York. The results will be compared to changes in atmospheric deposition...
This project provides weekly wet-only mercury deposition samples at the Mercury Deposition Network (MDN) station in the Biscuit Brook watershed at the Frost Valley YMCA. The station has been in operation since 2004 and is currently funded by New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). This is the only MDN station located in the Catskill Mountains and one of only 3 stations in New York State. The Catskill Mountains supply 85% of New York City’s drinking water through a system of surface water reservoirs. All of these reservoirs have fish consumption advisories because of the high level of mercury (Hg) in fish in the reservoirs and atmospheric Hg deposition is the main source of Hg to the...
BACKGROUND Watersheds of the Adirondack Mountains receive high levels of acid deposition resulting from atmospheric emissions of nitrogen and sulfur oxides. Acidic deposition has been shown to reduce acid neutralizing capacity (ANC) and calcium (Ca) concentrations, and increase acidity and aluminum (Al) concentrations in soils and surface waters, and affect forest health as well as fish and macroinvertebrate assemblages across the region. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is currently developing secondary standards for nitrogen and sulfur emissions that will indirectly protect terrestrial and aquatic species and their communities from further adverse impacts and promote recovery of acidified ecosystems...
Problem - Acidic precipitation has affected forested and aquatic ecosystems in New York, particularly in the Adirondack and Catskill regions. Acidification of surface waters and deleterious effects on fish and other biota have been well documented in both these regions. Despite reduced levels of acidity in atmospheric deposition over the past 20 years across New York and the northeastern United States, the most acid-sensitive streams and lakes have not yet begun to recover, and many show continued declines in acid-neutralizing capacity, an indicator acid-base status. Many studies have documented the effects of acid precipitation in New York, but thus far, there has been no comprehensive effort to synthesize and...
Background Acidification of lotic and lentic environments has been found to adversely affect the integrity of resident biological assemblages. These effects have been particularly severe in poorly buffered regions like the Western Adirondacks. Although the Clean Air Act and its amendments have greatly reduced levels of atmospheric deposition, many streams in this region are still chronically or episodically acidified. In-stream and watershed-wide liming are two directed-mitigation techniques which could be used to accelerate ecosystem recovery and help restore the condition of biological assemblages. The costs and abilities (as well as effective duration) of these techniques to improve water and soil chemistry,...
Categories: Data,
Project;
Types: Downloadable,
Map Service,
OGC WFS Layer,
OGC WMS Layer,
Shapefile;
Tags: Aquatic Community Health,
Aquatic Community Health,
Aquatic Community Health,
Completed,
Cooperative Water Program,
Background With few exceptions, the contemporary and past effects of acidification on fish populations and communities in streams across acid-sensitive regions of NY have not been documented. The pervasive lack of information only permits anecdotal insight into the spatial effects of acidification on stream-fish assemblages and essentially precludes any broad effort to quantify temporal trends and potential recovery of fish assemblages in less acidic or less toxic streams. Though the effects of acidification on fish assemblages have been qualified in several streams of the eastern Adirondacks during 1979, the 1980s, and early 2000s, (Schofield and Driscoll 1987; Simonin et al. 2005) quantitative impacts were...
Categories: Data,
Project;
Types: Downloadable,
Map Service,
OGC WFS Layer,
OGC WMS Layer,
Shapefile;
Tags: Adirondack Mountains,
Aquatic Community Health,
Aquatic Community Health,
Aquatic Community Health,
Catskill Mountains,
BACKGROUND The Adirondack region of New York has a history of relatively high atmospheric sulfur (S) and nitrogen (N) deposition (Greaver et al. 2012). Adirondack ecosystems have been impacted by these inputs, including soil and surface water acidification, and impaired health and diversity of forest vegetation and aquatic biota. Air quality management, through the Clean Air Act, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency NOx Budget Trading Program, and the Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR) has resulted in decreases in atmospheric S and N deposition in the Adirondacks and throughout the eastern U.S. (Lehmann et al., 2005), which is driving the recovery of surface waters from past acidification. Section 303(d)...
The overall goal of this project has been the development of forest health and sensitivity indicators and “1st-generation” maps of potential sensitivity to disturbance for lands within watersheds of the NYC water supply in the Catskill Mountains of New York. The methodologies and data layers created in this effort can now be used to aid management decisions and help determine the extent and magnitude of terrestrial and aquatic responses to acidic deposition. The data products derived from this effort have been produced and documented in such a manner that stakeholders can now use these products for site evaluation as well as to perform more extensive analysis on the suite of readily available GIS and image-based...
Background The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) and Adirondack Lakes Survey Corporation (ALSC) repeatedly surveyed fish assemblages and characterized water chemistry from 44 to 52 lakes during the periods 1984-1987 and 1994-2005, and 2008-2012 to document the regional effects of acidic deposition and potential recovery associated with the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendment (CAAA) under the Adirondack Long-Term Monitoring (ATLM) Project. An initial analysis of changes in fish assemblages between the periods 1984-1987 and 1994-2005 noted modest and mixed recoveries, identified five fish-community response/recovery classes, and helped to devise a fish-community index based on species acid...
Background Forested watersheds in the southwestern Adirondack Mountains of New York received some of the most acidic deposition in North America from the 1970s through much of the 1990s (NADP 2005). Thus it is not surprising that associated effects on surface-water quality and ecosystems in lakes and streams of the southwestern Adirondack Mountains of New York were investigated to various extents over the past 35 years; first to document acidification effects and then to evaluate potential recovery. In fact, evidence of adverse impacts on water quality and aquatic ecosystems across the region provided much support for implementation of the Clean Air Act (CAA) of 1990. Although the underlying effect mechanisms were...
Categories: Data,
Project;
Types: Downloadable,
Map Service,
OGC WFS Layer,
OGC WMS Layer,
Shapefile;
Tags: Aquatic Community Health,
Aquatic Community Health,
Aquatic Community Health,
Contaminants, Natural,
Contaminants, Natural,
Project Summary. The Western Adirondack Stream Survey (WASS), conducted in 2003-2005, showed that acidic deposition was causing toxic forms of Al to move from soils to streams in 66% of the 565 watersheds assessed in the study region. The WASS encompassed only 20% of the Adirondack region, and for the remaining 80% (referred to hereafter as the East-Central Adirondack region), there is little information on the extent of soil and stream acidification. Based on lake-chemistry data, acidification in the East-Central Adirondack region has been considered minimal relative to the Western Adirondack region. However, some lake acidification has been identified, and WASS results showed that lake acidification under...
Background Although New York State has more than 70,000 miles of streams and rivers, little is known about the status, distribution, and trends of mercury (Hg) levels in stream fish, or the environmental drivers of these patterns. Streams and their riparian zones provide critical habitat for fish, birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians, and serve as the interface between aquatic and terrestrial Hg transfer, transformations (most notably methylation) and bioaccumulation. Importantly, monitoring data from lakes (e.g., Simonin et al. 2006) does not transfer reliably to streams because of fundamental differences in Hg cycling and bioaccumulation processes. An assessment of fish Hg bioaccumulation focused on New...
Categories: Data,
Project;
Types: Downloadable,
Map Service,
OGC WFS Layer,
OGC WMS Layer,
Shapefile;
Tags: Aquatic Community Health,
Aquatic Community Health,
Aquatic Community Health,
Cooperative Water Program,
Ecosystem Health,
A. BACKGROUND Aquatic macroinvertebrates, such as dragonfly larvae or crayfish have great potential for Mercury (Hg) monitoring, both as indicator organisms (or "sentinels'), and to provide critical information on Hg in lower food webs to assist in interpreting fish Hg levels. Despite these advantages, macroinvertebrates are not widely used in Hg monitoring because of the current need to directly analyze macoinvertebrate tissue for methyl-mercury (MeHg), at much greater expense than analyzing for total Hg (THg) (i.e. as a surrogate for MeHg), as with fish tissue. This is because the ratio of MeHg to THg in macroinvertebrates exhibits large taxonomic, spatial, and temporal variation, and there is no clear...
Categories: Data,
Project;
Types: Downloadable,
Map Service,
OGC WFS Layer,
OGC WMS Layer,
Shapefile;
Tags: Cooperative Water Program,
Ecological Assessment of Human and Natural Impacts,
Ecological Assessment of Human and Natural Impacts,
Ecological Assessment of Human and Natural Impacts,
Ecosystem Health,
The distribution of mercury (Hg) and sites of greatest Hg methylation are poorly understood in Catskill Mountain watersheds. Although concentrations of Hg in the water column are low, high concentrations of Hg in smallmouth bass and walleye have led to consumption advisories in most large New York City reservoirs in the Catskill Mountains. Mercury in natural waters can exist in many forms, including gaseous elemental mercury (Hg0), dissolved and particulate inorganic forms (Hg(II)), and dissolved and particulate methylmercury (MeHg). Most Hg in living organisms is MeHg, a highly neurotoxic form that bioaccumulates in aquatic food webs. The production of MeHg by methylation of inorganic Hg in the environment...
The lakes, rivers, and streams of New York State provide an essential water resource for the State. The information provided by time series hydrologic data is essential to understanding ways to promote healthy instream ecology and to strengthen the scientific basis for sound water management decision making in New York. The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with The Nature Conservancy and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, has developed the New York Streamflow Estimation Tool to estimate a daily mean hydrograph for the period from October 1, 1960, to September 30, 2010, at ungaged locations across the State. The New York Streamflow Estimation Tool produces a complete estimated daily...
Categories: Data,
Project;
Types: Downloadable,
Map Service,
OGC WFS Layer,
OGC WMS Layer,
Shapefile;
Tags: Aquatic Community Health,
Aquatic Community Health,
Best-Management Practices,
Best-Management Practices,
Completed,
Summary Acid rain levels in the Adirondack region have substantially declined and recovery from acid rain is underway. Recovery is being limited by the depletion of soil calcium that occurred over past decades. Not only is calcium needed for neutralizing acidity, it is an essential nutrient for terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. However, recovery of soil calcium has not yet been observed. Whole-ecosystem restoration through watershed liming, possibly combined with in-stream liming, may provide a practical option for stimulating recovery of certain acid-sensitive, high-value natural resources. Information from past liming efforts, however, is insufficient for determining the degree of success that could be achieved...
BACKGROUND Air emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels in electrical power plants, building heating systems and vehicles are the major source of gaseous sulfur (SOx) and nitrogen (NOx) oxides in the atmosphere. These oxides dissolve in atmospheric moisture forming ions which are deposited by rain, snowfall and dust particles as acidic deposition. Acidic deposition releases soluble aluminum from the soil which can reach toxic concentrations in adjacent water bodies such as streams and wetlands. Acidic deposition also removes important nutrients such as calcium, potassium and magnesium from the soil negatively impacting local flora and fauna. Depletion of calcium combined with excess aluminum makes forest...
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