FLOOD10356

• County: Delta
• Title: North Fork Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring Project - April 2001-April 2002 Data Report
• Date: 9/30/2002
• Prepared For: North Fork River Improvement Association
• Prepared By: CSU Cooperative Extension and North Fork River Improvement Association
• Floodplain - Doc Type: Floodplain Report/Masterplan

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In 1998, the State lowered the selenium water quality standard designed to protect aquatic
life to the new low level of 5 parts per billion (Ppb). This level is lower even than the
human drinking water standard of 50 ppb. At this time, multiple streams in the Lower
Gunnison Basin, as well as Sweitzer Lake, are in violation of the selenium water quality
standard.

In a response to these water quality concerns, the Gunnison Basin Selenium Task Force
was formed to address watershed-wide selenium cleanup issues. This group of Federal,
State, and local interests has been working hard for the last five years to find selenium
reduction strategies that maintain the economic viability and lifestyle of the area.

Recent Changes to Water Quality Standards for Recreation

In recent years, recreational water quality standards in Segments 2 and 3 of the North
Fork have been upgraded to more accurately reflect the current uses of the river.
Specifically, Segment 2 was upgraded to a Recreation Class la stream. This means that
the water quality in this segment, and specifically bacteria concentrations, must be
acceptable for full body contact such as swimming.

In addition, in Segment 3, the
recreation-based water quality
standards were recently changed
to a seasonal standard. This
means that in the summer months
(from April 1 to September 30),
the river must meet the
Recreation Class 1 a, full body
contact standard. However,
during the winter (October 1 to
March 30), the stream must only
meet the Recreation Class 2
standard, which allows for higher
bacteria concentrations.

One goal of this volunteer monitoring project is to determine if the river is meeting these
newly adopted recreation standards. Although volunteers do not collect water samples
for regulatory or compliance purposes, they are attempting to conduct a screening-level
assessment of bacteria concentrations in the North Fork watershed. Results of these
monitoring efforts are provided in Section 3.3, below.

Although the CDPHE does have one long-term monitoring site in Segment 3 of the North
Fork (near Lazear), without the bacteria monitoring made possible through this volunteer
monitoring program, there would be no State monitoring to evaluate if Segment 2
specifically, is meeting its new Rec 1 a standard.

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