SRWP Water Quality Monitoring
A Regional Monitoring Program for the Sacramento River Watershed
SRWP is launching an effort to develop a long-term, sustainable regional monitoring program for the Sacramento River Watershed. A major portion of the funding for the program must come from the program’s stakeholders. The program is described in more detail in this flyer. The final report is here.
Monitoring Program Summary
Download the report (PDF, 1.5MB)
The SRWP has been monitoring the Sacramento River and its major tributaries since 1998. The SRWP’s monitoring program was started because there had not been an ongoing monitoring program for the Sacramento River watershed, and there was a need to better understand water quality in the watershed. This report looks at the first six years of monitoring, which was essentially baseline monitoring conducted to establish the water quality condition of the Sacramento River and some of its tributaries. Funding for the six years of monitoring totaled over $4 million and came from a USEPA grant to the Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District with the District providing matching funds and services. The SRWP also collaborated with monitoring efforts of other agencies including the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board, U.S. Geological Survey, California Department of Water Resources and Department of Fish and Game.
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The purpose of the SRWP Water Monitoring Program is to develop a cost-efficient and well-coordinated long term monitoring program to assess conditions within the watershed to identify the causes, effects and extent of constituents of concern that affect the overall heath of the watershed and to measure progress as control strategies are implemented.
Objectives
- To assess conditions in the main stem of the Sacramento River and its tributaries through the collection of baseline information, with an emphasis on examining the degree to which overall health of the watershed is attained or potentially impaired.
- Identification of available monitoring program elements which will provide information which we need to know to understand the condition of the watershed (i.e. to inventory the characteristics of the watershed).
- Identification of an approach for determining the relative health of the watershed (i.e., a means to assess and evaluate the meaning of the above information).
- Identification of the monitoring goals and future uses for the data being collected, including:
- Water quality characterization
- Biological assessment
- Long-term trend analysis
- Comparison with applicable water quality regulations
- Identification of data needs and data quality objectives (i.e. to ensure that data collected will be useful, understandable, accessible, manageable, and scientifically valid).
- Evaluation of watershed characteristics relative to established assessment benchmarks
- Adapt the monitoring program to meet stakeholders’ priorities in response to changes in watershed characteristics
- Provide information to all stakeholders on watershed health.
- Collaborate with other stakeholder monitoring efforts and programs
Accomplishments
- Developed and implement annual watershed monitoring plans
- Provided grants for tributary monitoring and for special monitoring project
- Published annual monitoring reports
- Established a workplan for establishing reference conditions for streams in the watershed
- Preparing to conduct extensive biological assessments on designated streams in the watershed
Why is the monitoring program important to the Sacramento River Watershed and why should I care about it?
The answers below were given are from stakeholders with a wide range of affiliations including public agencies, agriculture, and concerned citizens.
Answer 1
An accurate assessment of the watershed’s chemistry and biological health is necessary to identify problem areas and measure success when fixing those problems. Stormwater regulations, TMDLs, and local industrial wastewater discharge limits rely on these assessments as well and will, in turn, have impacts on local businesses and land use decisions.
Answer 2
Collecting and analyzing monitoring data for the watershed establishes an information feedback loop that allows us to manage the watershed resources more according to reality than to predictions and models. Instead of waiting for things to happen, and then reacting, we are able to be proactive in making management decisions. It is much the same as the difference between “idiot lights” on a car dashboard that tell you your car just ran out of oil, and having a gauge that lets you know in advance that your oil pressure is dropping. This gives more time for more thoughtful response to changing conditions, and allows us to better evaluate the decisions we make.
Answer 3
From the perspective of one of the members of the regulated community, the monitoring program is a double-edged sword. It promises great potential for compiling valuable data about the watershed, which can and should be used to protect this precious resource: water for drinking, farming, and the ecosystem. In a perfect world, data gathered in the monitoring program would be used to identify the real stressors on beneficial uses of the water system: ecological, public health, etc. Then, where genuine problems exist, real solutions can be identified.
Clearly these “stressors” are not just chemicals or metals that can be measured by monitoring. Stressors on the Sacramento River Watershed and the Delta ecosystem can be far-ranging, including everything from over-fishing in the ocean to flows affected by the huge pumps that send water out of the Delta. Our greatest concern is that – as can and has happened with many otherwise well-intentioned data-gathering efforts – the data from the monitoring program will be misused to dire c t responsibility for perceived problems at the very stakeholders who have taken the trouble to support the monitoring effort. Every effort should be made to stress context throughout the process. We need to be ready to accept the very real responsibility that the aggregate of most chemical and metal constituents poses so little impact to the ecosystem, compared to other factors, that we can only conclude that most of our efforts should be directed elsewhere.
In summary, the monitoring program is important for two reasons. First, if managed properly, it can identify problems and provide support to protect good citizens of the watershed. Unfortunately, the program is also important because of its negative potential – its efforts can be used to misdirect resources and regulatory efforts, endangering the stability of agriculture, other industries, and the long-term future of the region, while the real problems go unchecked.
Answer 4
The monitoring program is a vital key to understanding the health of our watershed. Establishing baseline data in a coordinated and cooperative effort throughout the watershed will create a comprehensive picture of our watershed. Any improvements can then be measured and evaluated against this baseline data. It is also possible to pinpoint significant pollutant sources, obtain a better understanding of how our system’s pollutants behave, and identify the most cost-effective methods to control them where appropriate. To make informed decisions and actions, we need an understanding of pollutants and their effects in our watershed.
The monitoring program will provide this information. The health of the watershed affects all of us living and working in the watershed.
Answer 5
The SRWP’s monitoring program is important because:
- It can provide a general assessment of the watershed’s condition relative to subsequent years
- It can provide an indication of changes in land use throughout the watershed
- It can provide data which allows us to identify and focus on the watershed’s most critical “constituents of concern ”
- It can provide data for informed decisions on future land and water uses
We should care because:
- We depend on the watershed’s resources for clean drinking water, agricultural, industrial, and recreational uses
- It’s easier and generally less expensive to prevent harmful land and water use practices than it is to clean them up after the fact
- Increasing need for water demands that existing resources be managed more effectively
Answer 6
In assessing the health of the Sacramento River Watershed, long-term in-stream monitoring is one of the major components that must be developed and implemented. Baseline data is essential to establishing any long-term monitoring program. Once in place, it will define water quality trends and pinpoint areas of concern that potentially impair beneficial uses.
The sustained health of the watershed should be important to every one, active stakeholder or not, and no matter what one’s walk in life. Long-term in-stream monitoring within a watershed will help separate the many natural impairments from those currently caused by human hands. Perhaps there are natural enhancements taking place that would only be apparent after analysis of data over the long-term, and would allow future monitoring parameters to be modified.
Those who are fearful of the “big brother” effect should consider that there is a need for more individual stakeholder participation in assessing the watershed health. They also should become involved early in strategic policy level issues that will surely be discussed and/or proposed in the future .
The above is excerpted from the July 1998 SRWP Waterways newsletter.
