Publication Summary

Four of a planned nine years of monitoring water quality and pollution controls were completed in six sub-basins within the Totten and Eld Inlet watersheds in Puget Sound as part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency′s Section 319 National Monitoring Program. The goal of the monitoring program is to determine the effectiveness of nonpoint source pollution management programs at improving water quality.

Four of a planned nine years of monitoring water quality and pollution controls were completed in six sub-basins within the Totten and Eld Inlet watersheds in Puget Sound as part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency′s Section 319 National Monitoring Program. The goal of the monitoring program is to determine the effectiveness of nonpoint source pollution management programs at improving water quality.

Failing on-site sewage systems and small farm livestock keeping practices are a major cause of bacterial contamination of shellfish growing areas in Totten and Eld Inlets. Water quality parameters monitored include fecal coliform (FC) bacteria, total suspended solids, turbidity, flow, temperature, conductivity, and precipitation. The monitoring designs used in this study are the paired watershed and single-site-over-time.

Most of the pollution controls installed in the study basins addressed livestock-keeping practices. Since 1993, 16 farm plans were developed and over 130 best management practices (BMPs) were installed in five of the six study basins. Water quality data show that FC levels continue to be highly variable at most sites which supports the need for a longer record of water quality in order to determine if trends are present.

Most farm planning and BMPs will be completed in 1997 in the Totten basins, and continue into 1999 in the Eld Basins. Water quality monitoring is scheduled to continue into 2001 and should provide at least two years of post-BMP water quality data. Analyses for determining trends in water quality are planned to be done in 1999 for Kennedy, Schneider, Burns, and Pierre basins, and in 2001 for the McLane and Perry basins. This should allow adequate time to implement BMPs and develop a sufficient data set that can be used to detect trends in water quality. The final report, scheduled for completion in 2002, will examine the association between water quality and the installation of pollution controls.