Project Location: East Texas
Project Costs: Federal ($367,620); Non Federal Match ($245,080); Total Project ($612,700)
Project Participant(s): TSSWCB, Texas Forest Service, and area SWCDs
Project Workplan: 03-04
Final Report: 03-04
For 15 years, the Texas Forest Service has promoted the use of Best Management Practices (BMPs) to prevent or reduce amount of water pollution when conducting forestry operations. While it is common knowledge that these environmental guidelines are an effective and practical means of preventing water pollution, there is no quantifiable data to substantiate their obvious aeshetic improvements.
In 2003, the Texas Forest Service began a biological and physiochemical stream monitoring project designed to test the effectiveness of the state recommended BMPs. This project includes plans to monitor and test four streams in East Texas for a year and a half, harvest the surrounding timber stand using BMPs, and continue testing for two more years to capture changes, if any, associated with the harvest. High-tech monitoring equipment (ISCO 4230 bubbler flow meter and 3700 automatic water sampler) was placed upstream (reference) and downstream (test) of planned harvest sites to assist with the data collection.
The biological monitoring aspect of this project focuses on sampling fish and benthic macroinvertebrate communities found in selected streams. The physiochemical monitoring components measures DO, pH, temperature, conductivity, turbidity, sediment, and nutrient concentrations in grab and stormwater samples. For more information about this project, contact Hughes Simpson at 936-639-8180 or hsimpson [at] tfs [dot] tamu [dot] edu.