USGS Water Science in Ohio, 2016–17: Streamgages, Beaches, Algal Toxins and Arsenic

Ohio is bordered by the Ohio River and Lake Erie and has over 44,000 miles of streams and more than 60,000 lakes and ponds. That water serves drinking, recreation, farming, industry, fish and wildlife; floods and droughts can disrupt all of them. Nearly everyone in rural Ohio drinks groundwater.

The U.S. Geological Survey's Ohio Water Science Center works with local, State and other Federal agencies and universities to supply the science behind managing that water. The USGS has no regulatory or development authority: its only product is impartial scientific information, open to everyone. This summary, from a USGS fact sheet of November 2016, lists the center's current and recent work.

Ohio's major watersheds: the Lake Erie Basin in the north, the Ohio River Basin across the rest of the state. USGS.

Data anyone can look up

• Streamflow. The USGS in Ohio runs about 280 streamgages, about 200 of which compute streamflow — part of about 8,250 nationwide. Many record every 15 to 60 minutes and send the data online hourly by satellite, for flood forecasting, water allocation, engineering, lock and dam operation and recreational safety. Statistics and annual peaks are in the National Water Information System (NWIS).
• Groundwater. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources and the Miami Conservancy District monitor water levels in more than 140 wells; the USGS and ODNR publish the levels and statistics through Groundwater Watch, the National Ground-Water Monitoring Network and NWIS.
• Water quality. Near-real-time stations measure the temperature, specific conductance, pH, dissolved oxygen and turbidity of streams on the same 15-to-60-minute, hourly-upload schedule.
• Water use. Every 5 years since 1950, Ohio's water use has been compiled for the USGS National Water-Use Information program — public supply, domestic, irrigation, livestock, aquaculture, industry, mining and thermoelectric power — by county and by watershed.

Floods and low flows

A crest-stage gage, which records the highest water of each flood. Photo by Branden Vonins, USGS.

• Crest-stage gages. Streams draining less than 100 square miles have been under-represented in regional flood studies, so in 2001 crest-stage gages went in at 17 sites across Ohio. Once they have recorded enough annual peaks, the statewide flood-frequency analysis can be updated.
• Flood mapping. Hydrologic and hydraulic models give the water-surface elevation of a flood of a given size along a channel; combined with land elevations, they map what it would cover. Near streamgages where the National Weather Service forecasts flood levels, libraries of these maps let people see ahead of time what a forecast flood would inundate, through the USGS Flood Inundation Mapper.
• StreamStats. A web map that gives low-flow, peak-flow and daily, monthly and annual streamflow statistics and basin characteristics for any ungaged stream site in Ohio, and the published statistics for gaged ones. A recent addition shows average historical water use in basins of northeast Ohio.
• Low-flow network. Low-flow figures guide water-supply planning, wastewater-discharge and withdrawal permits and instream-flow requirements. The network combines continuous gages with sites measured only during low flow.
• Hoover Reservoir. With the City of Columbus, the USGS is mapping currents and water quality near Westerville during releases from different valves.

Lake Erie and its farms

An edge-of-field monitoring site. Photo by Carrie Huitger, USGS.

• Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. The USGS measures water quality continuously, and samples nutrients and sediment, on four Lake Erie tributaries — the Maumee, Vermilion, Black and Cuyahoga Rivers — part of 24 monitored tributaries around the Great Lakes. In the Maumee basin, a priority watershed, it also samples surface runoff at the edge of a field and water from a buried field drain (both on Eagle Creek near Williamstown) and a streamgage on Eagle Creek above Findlay, to learn how farming practices change the amount and quality of water leaving farms.
• Nutrients and sediment. Nitrogen and phosphorus are a concern in the western Lake Erie basin: too much feeds excessive algae and can cause taste and odor problems in drinking water. Samples are collected at nine streamgages on the Maumee River and its tributaries, and daily, seasonal and annual loads are estimated.

Measuring streamflow at Swan Creek in Toledo. Photo by Donna Runkle, USGS.

Safe to swim, safe to drink

• Ohio Nowcast. Beaches are tested for E. coli, a bacterium from sewage and animal waste, but the standard test takes 18 to 24 hours. Quick measurements such as rainfall and water clarity, fed to statistical models, estimate the chance that E. coli is too high. The Nowcast has posted beach advisories since 2006; in 2016 a new interactive version covered eight Lake Erie beaches and one river site, on computers and phones. At 49 Great Lakes beaches, the models did better overall than the standard method.
• Faster tests. The USGS is testing a rapid PCR method for living microorganisms that could be biological-warfare agents, against culture methods, using a stand-in for the anthrax bacterium. An immunomagnetic method gives E. coli and enterococci results for recreational water in 2 hours instead of 18–24.
• Microbial source tracking. The USGS Ohio Water Microbiology Laboratory in Columbus analyses water for DNA markers of fecal contamination from humans, cattle and other ruminants, dogs and waterfowl (by quantitative PCR), alongside sanitary surveys and studies of how weather and flow move the bacteria around.
• Cyanobacteria and toxins. Harmful blooms of cyanobacteria are becoming more frequent and severe worldwide, Ohio included; microcystins are among the toxins most often found. The USGS and partners are building models to predict microcystin in rivers and lakes used for recreation and drinking water. In an earlier study of recreational lakes, algal measures (phycocyanin, cyanobacterial biovolume and gene counts) and pH tracked microcystin closely, and continuous readings of phycocyanin, pH and temperature over several days tracked it best. Such models could time sampling, advise swimmers and guide drinking-water treatment.

Arsenic, methane and wells

• Arsenic occurs naturally in rock and soil and can dissolve into groundwater. It is one of the contaminants most often found in Ohio groundwater, yet most domestic wells are never tested for it, and long-term exposure is linked to cancer and other serious illness. Of 168 domestic wells tested in Licking County, almost 1 in 8 exceeded the EPA limit of 10 parts per billion; high values went with geology and water chemistry found in the western part of the county — and in other parts of Ohio, which match where earlier studies found high arsenic.
• Treatment. In 11 homes in central and southwestern Ohio, three kinds of arsenic-removal systems removed anywhere from 2 to 90 percent, depending on the raw water's chemistry and how well the equipment was maintained.
• Methane. In parts of southwestern Ohio, a few domestic wells with the highest arsenic also produced methane, which can catch fire or explode if it collects in an enclosed space. It can come from natural microbes or from drilling, leaking pipelines, coal mines, landfills or sewers. The USGS is measuring the "background" methane in aquifers across Ohio, which may later help trace methane found in a well.
• Geauga County. Residents depend almost entirely on wells, and planners fear growth will draw water down faster than it is replaced. The USGS monitors water levels in 30 wells open to four widely used aquifers; a second network near South Russell tests whether changes in levels come from development or from year-to-year differences in rain.

Fish, crayfish and green infrastructure

Crayfish near a stream. Photo by John Tertuliani, USGS.

• Species distributions. Gap analysis — a broad assessment of aquatic biodiversity and conservation — produced models of where 130 fish, 70 bivalve and 17 native crayfish species could live, based on a habitat classification of Ohio's perennial streams. A later study added regional climate projections under different scenarios, to find vulnerable rivers and likely changes for important fish.
• Stormwater. Low-impact development handles rain close to where it falls, with less pavement and more infiltration and evapotranspiration; stormwater control measures are engineered to cut runoff and the pollution and flooding it brings. In Cleveland's Slavic Village, 19 wells and weather stations are gathering data on two neighborhood blocks to guide future measures. At Griggs Reservoir in Columbus, weather, flow and groundwater data show whether newly built measures reduce runoff.

The national assessment in Ohio

The National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA), established in 1991, asks what condition the nation's water is in, whether it is improving or worsening, and how nature and people affect it, using the same design and methods everywhere so that regions can be compared. In Ohio:

• Rivers. Sediment and water samples from the Maumee River at Waterville (station 04193500), and periodically since 1994 from rivers in the Lake Erie basin and the Great and Little Miami River basins.
• Ecology. Habitat, fish, algae and invertebrate data, published in the USGS BioData database.
• Regional stream studies. In summer 2013 the Midwest Stream-Quality Assessment measured contaminants, nutrients, sediment and ecological condition at streams across the Midwest, western Ohio included; the Southeast (2014), Pacific Northwest (2015) and Northeast (2016) followed.
• Groundwater. Samples, water levels and trends from three well networks in the glacial aquifer — urban, agricultural and little-disturbed areas.
• Microbes in groundwater. Since 2013 the Ohio laboratory has tested groundwater used for drinking water for total coliforms, E. coli, enterococci, two kinds of coliphage and aerobic endospores.

Sources

• Kimberly H. Shaffer and Stephanie P. Kula (compilers), Science to Support the Understanding of Ohio's Water Resources, 2016–17, USGS Fact Sheet 2016–3087, November 2016. https://doi.org/10.3133/fs20163087
• USGS National Water Information System: https://waterdata.usgs.gov