Determining Status of Surface Water Quality in Parks of the Pacific West Region

Project ID: P16AC01362

Federal Agency: National Park Service

Partner Institution: Oregon State University

Fiscal Year: 2016

Initial Funding: $31,476

Total Funding: $170,395

Project Type: Research

Project Disciplines: Biological

National Park: Pacific West Region I-M multi networks

Principal Investigator: Warren, Dana

Agreement Technical Representative: Dinger, Eric

Abstract: The goals of the project are twofold: 1) to track the status of and identify potential impairment to water quality in PWR parks, and 2) to provide OSU students with opportunities to learn, perform, and evaluate water chemistry analyses on surface water samples from national parks (with technical oversight from OSU laboratory staff and faculty). OSU undergraduate and graduate students may also have the opportunity to participate in data summary, data analysis, and technical report writing. Expected products include technical reports on water quality from selected waterbodies within PWR parks.

B. Objectives

Investigators from OSU and NPS staff will collaborate to accomplish the following specific objectives.

1) Collect lake, stream, spring, or other waterbody water samples from PWR parks and conduct chemical analyses of samples.
2) Interpret results of chemical analyses and develop technical reports for selected waterbodies within PWR parks that include summarized water quality data.

This Task Agreement initially funds work involving the first set of water samples from two I&M networks and their associated parks: the Klamath (KLMN) Network, and the Mojave Desert (MOJN) network. This agreement may be modified in the future to add additional work (i.e., additional sets of water samples) from these two networks, and/or from other PWR I&M networks, subject to the availability of funding and satisfactory progress of project work.