Floyds Fork Watershed Biological Assessments Update

Floyds Fork TMDL Public Meeting, February 19, 2013

Kentucky Division of WaterDepartment for Environmental Protection

To Protect and Enhance Kentucky’s Environment

Objectives• Assess the current biological health of selected

streams in the watershed• Identify likely causes of biological impairments

Macro-invertebrates

Fish

Algae

2012 Sampling Sites

• Floyds Fork mainstem - 4 sites• North and South Forks Currys

Fork and un-named tributary of South Currys Fork

• Ashers Run• “Upper” Chenoweth Run• Pope Lick – 2 Sites• South Long Run• Long Run• Pennsylvania Run• Cedar Creek• Cane Run• Brooks Run

2012 Site Visit Activities

• General field observations• Biological sampling– Bugs, Fish, Algae

• Habitat Assessment– Assessment of the quality of the habitat available to

aquatic organisms

• Visual algae surveys– Survey of the types and the thickness of algae

growing in the stream

• Chlorophyll-a sampling– Measurement of the amount of algae in the water column

Aquatic Life Use Assessment• “KIBI” – Kentucky Index of Biotic Integrity (fish)• “MBI” – Macroinvertebrate Bioassessment Index

– pollution tolerant vs. pollution sensitive species– species diversity– species that require adequate habitat of certain types

• Score results fall in a range from Excellent or Good (= Fully Supporting aquatic life use to

Fair, Poor or Very Poor (= not Fully Supporting)

• dominated by a few pollution tolerant species

• diversity is low and sensitive species are rare

• persistently high levels of algae• low oxygen or widely changing

oxygen• nutrients high compared to most

streams that fully support aquatic life use

Indicators of Nutrients and Organic Enrichment

Cane RunFishEXCELLENTMacroinvertebratesGOOD

Floyds Fork lower sectionsFishGOOD to EXCELLENTMacroinvertebratesEXCELLENT

North Fork Currys ForkMacroinvertebratesFAIR

Brooks RunMacroinvertebratesFAIR

Green = Full Support Red = Impaired, causes

include Nutrients and/or Organic Enrichment

Black = Impaired, other causes

Purple = Undetermined impairment or causes

2012 Biological Sampling Results

Penn

sylv

ania

Run

Green = Full Support Red = Impaired, causes

include Nutrients and/or Organic Enrichment

Black = Impaired, other causes

Purple = Undetermined impairment or causes

Candidate Impairments Feb 2013

2013-4 Activities• Additional sampling to resolve “Undetermined”

impairments• Biological sampling in remaining streams previously

listed for nutrient/organic enrichment impairments