Water Quality Variations and Trends in Monument and Fountain Creeks

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013 were larger downstream to station 07105530 Fountain Creek below CSWWTP and then were smaller. Median counts of fecal streptococcus bacteria (fig. 32) were larger downstream except at station 07105905 Fountain Creek below Fountain and then were slightly larger at station 07105600 Fountain Creek at Pueblo. Water - Quality Trends Quantitative comparisons of median values of selected water - quality properties and concentrations of constituents were made among seven of the stations for water years 1980 through 1988. The stations analyzed were divided into two groups; the first group included three stations on Monument Creek: 07103747 Monument Creek at Palmer Lake, 07104000 Monument Creek at Pikeview, and 07104905 Monument Creek at Bijou. The second group included the most downstream station on Monument Creek, 07104905 Monument Creek at Bijou, and four stations on Fountain Creek: 07103700 Fountain Creek near Colorado Springs, 07105500 Fountain Creek at Colorado Springs, 07105530 Fountain Creek below CSWWTP, and 07105905 Fountain Creek below Fountain. Station 07104905 Monument Creek at Bijou was included in the second group of stations on Fountain Creek in order to compare the water- quality properties and concen- trations of constituents of Monument Creek to the water - quality properties and concentrations of constituents of Fountain Creek because generally more than 50 percent of the streamflow in Fountain Creek is from Monument Creek (Doug Cain, U.S. Geological Survey, oral commun., 1990). Stations 07103780 Monument Creek at USAFA and 07106500 Fountain Creek at Pueblo were not included in the analysis because of insufficient data. The comparisons were made using Tukey's studentized range test (SAS Institute Inc., 1985). Tukey's test was used to compare the median value of a water - quality property or constituent for all stations in a group. An alpha level of 0.05 was used to determine whether the median values were signifi- cantly different. The results are presented in table 2. Stations with the same letter or number are not significantly different. A, B, and C are used for the first group of stations; 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 are used for the second group of stations. The lower the letter in the alphabet or the smaller the number, the smaller the median value. For example, the median water tempera- ture at station 07104000 Monument Creek at Pikeview is not significantly different from the median water temperatures at stations 07103747 Monument Creek at Palmer Lake or 07104905 Monument Creek at Bijou, but the median water temperatures at 07103747 and 07104905 are significantly different from each other. The median values listed in this table may be different from the median values listed in tables 4 and 6 -11 because of the period of record used. Results of Tukey's test generally indicate that for Monument Creek, the median concentration of most constituents at station 07103747 Monument Creek at Palmer Lake is significantly different from stations 07104000 Monument Creek at Pikeview and 07104905 Monument Creek at Bijou, which are more similar to each other. The median concentration of most constituents at station 07103700 Fountain Creek near Colorado Springs, upstream from the mouth of Monument Creek, is significantly different from the median concentration of most constitiuents at downstream stations on Fountain Creek except for pH at station 07105500 Fountain Creek at Colorado Springs and for fecal coliform at 11