Driving factors in benthic macroinvertebrate community composition within the Animas River Alex Ratcliff, M.S. Southern Ute Indian Tribe Water Quality Program
SUIT Water Quality Program • The WQP strives to improve the quality of surface waters on the Southern Ute Indian Reservation through monitoring and with projects that employ best management practices. • Extensive CWA Section 106 and 319 programs • Recently received Treatment as a State to implement Water Quality Standards and 401 Certifications • Within reservation boundaries we have a lot of input from agriculture • Nutrients are of particular interest
SUIT Water Quality Program • Monitor the water quality within the reservation boundary • Checkerboard reservation • Frequently work with private landowners • 9 YSI Sondes deployed • 3 along the Animas River • pH, DO, Temp, Turbidity, Conductivity • HOBOware temperature tidbits
Gold King Mine Response Efforts • Following the GKM Spill SUIT received funding from EPA to monitor any potential impacts • Interested in how/if the GKM spill has impacted aquatic health • Groundwater • Surface water • Heavy metals, nutrients/bacteria, macros, sediment • Do any Pre/Post spill differences exist?
Animas River Sites • AR 19-3 • AR 16-0 • AR 7-2 • AR 2-7
Surface Water Sampling • Environmental variables • 33 total and dissolved analytes • 5 nutrient criteria
Macroinvertebrate Sampling • Early spring and late summer • Kick samples to represent specific site • Pre spill samplings that occurred on the Animas in 2014 • Data available on STORET • 6 sites • 2 excluded because not sampled again after 2014 • 4 sites • Twice a year between 2015-2017 • Macro species identified to the lowest practical taxonomic level
Did the macroinvertebrate communities change as a result of the GKM spill? • Principal Component Analysis (PCA) • determine if any of the environmental variables are significantly impacting community composition • Non-Metric Multidimensional Scaling Ordinations (NMDS) • community composition, looks for similarities and differences in a large set of data
Cluster Analysis
Ordinations
Ordinations
NMDS Ordination of Macroinvertebrate Community Composition
Why does this matter? • Results are within the SUIT Reservation boundary • Need a more holistic approach • Cannot necessarily attribute the differences to GKM • Maybe treatment upstream is what we are seeing • Did not take macro tissue samples • Transition focus to more nutrient based concern/assessment? • Nutrient loading • ID major tributaries that are contributing • Look at other watershed within Reservation to see how the Animas compares
Questions?
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