Watershed- and Regional-Scale Contamination

Locations of Toxics Program Watershed- and Regional-Scale Contamination Investigations (Click on map for larger version) Locating inflows and springs discharging into Mineral Creek, Colo., prior to conducting tracer test. Tracer tests are used to assess the relative magnitude of metal loading from inflows along a stream reach -- from the Abandoned Hard-Rock Mining Photo Gallery

The Toxics Program conducts watershed- and regional-scale investigations of legacy, current, and emerging contaminants affecting aquatic ecosystems from common types of nonpoint and distributed point-source contamination. More about watershed- and regional-scale contamination investigations

Watershed Contamination from Hard-Rock Mining

Pesticide Contamination in Varied Pesticide-Use Settings

Emerging Contaminants in the Environment

Mercury in Aquatic Ecosystems

Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative

Priority Ecosystem Studies

Complete listing of watershed and regional scale investigations and projects >>

Other Watershed- and Regional-Scale Investigations

• Fate of Organic Compounds in River Systems, Lower Calcasieu River, Louisiana [Completed]
• Management Systems Evaluation Areas, Upper Midwest (Corn Belt) [Completed]
• Nonpoint-Source Ground-Water Contamination in Relation to Land Use [Completed]
• National Irrigation Water Quality Program (NIWQP) [Completed]

Watershed- and Regional-Scale Contamination Information

• Index of Bibliographies from Point-Source Investigations
• Index of Photo Galleries for Watershed- and Regional-Scale Contamination Investigations
• Crosscutting Topics Related to Watershed- and Regional-Scale Contamination
• Agricultural Chemicals — Occurrence and fate of chemicals used for agriculture
• Contaminant Occurrence Studies — Large-scale studies of the occurrence and distribution of new contaminants in the environment
• Nutrients — Fate and effects of nutrients in the environment
• Surface-Water Contaminant Transport — Research on the transport and fate of contaminants in surface water
• Unsaturated Zone — Contaminant transport and fate in the unsaturated zone
• Selected Fact Sheets on Watershed- and Regional-Scale Contamination
• USGS Toxic Substances Hydrology Program, 2010: USGS Fact Sheet 2010-3011
• Water quality in the Blue River Basin, Kansas City metropolitan area, Missouri and Kansas, July 1998 to October 2004: USGS Fact Sheet 2006-3103.
• Wastewater chemicals in Colorado's streams and ground water: USGS Fact Sheet 2004-3127.
• Trends in the water budget of the Mississippi River basin, 1949-1997: USGS Fact Sheet 2005-3020.
• Is septic waste affecting drinking water from shallow domestic wells along the Platte River in eastern Nebraska?: USGS Fact Sheet 072-03.
• Linking selenium sources to ecosystems--San Francisco Bay-Delta model: USGS Fact Sheet 2004-3091.
• Water quality of the Boulder Creek watershed, Colorado: USGS Fact Sheet 043-03.
• Mercury in stream ecosystems--New studies initiated by the U.S. Geological Survey: USGS Fact Sheet 016-03.
• Occurrence of antibiotics in water from fish hatcheries: USGS Fact Sheet 120-02.
• Glacial ice cores reveal a record of natural and anthropogenic atmospheric mercury deposition for the last 270 years: USGS Fact Sheet FS-051-02.
• Pharmaceuticals, hormones, and other organic wastewater contaminants in U.S. streams: USGS Fact Sheet FS-027-02.
• Malformed frogs in Minnesota--An update: USGS Fact Sheet FS-043-01.
• Nitrogen in the Mississippi Basin--Estimating sources and predicting flux to the Gulf of Mexico: USGS Fact Sheet 135-00.
• Mercury contamination from historic gold mining in California: USGS Fact Sheet FS-061-00.
• Discharge of herbicides from the Mississippi River Basin to the Gulf of Mexico, 1991-97: USGS Fact Sheet FS-163-98.
• Occurrence of cotton pesticides in surface water of the Mississippi Embayment: USGS Fact Sheet FS-022-98.
• Herbicides in rain fall across the Midwestern and Northeastern United States, 1990-91: USGS Fact Sheet FS-181-97.
• Herbicides in Midwestern reservoir outflows, 1992-93: USGS Fact Sheet FS-134-98.
• Herbicides in ground water of the Midwest--A regional study of shallow aquifers, 1991-94: USGS Fact Sheet FS-076-98.
• A reconnaissance for sulfonylurea herbicides in waters of the Midwestern USA: An example of collaboration between the public and private sectors: USGS Fact Sheet FS-046-98.
• Methods to identify areas susceptible to irrigation-induced selenium contamination in the Western United States: USGS Fact Sheet FS-O38-97.
• Source characterization of disinfection byproduct precursors in two Arkansas water-supply reservoirs: USGS Fact Sheet 118-97.
• Agricultural chemicals in Iowa's ground water, 1982-95 -- What are the trends: USGS Fact Sheet FS-116-97.
• Are walleye from Lake Roosevelt contaminated with mercury?: USGS Fact Sheet FS-102-97.
• Vulnerability of public drinking water supplies in New Jersey to pesticides: USGS Fact Sheet FS-165-96.
• Using Geochemical and Statistical Tools to Identify Irrigated Areas that Might Contain High Selenium Concentrations in Surface Water: USGS Fact Sheet FS-O77-96.
• Mercury Contamination of Aquatic Ecosystems: USGS Fact Sheet FS-216-95.

Meetings and Conferences

• USGS cosponsors the special session Nutrient Sources and Cycling in Aquatic Systems at the 2009 AGU Fall Meeting, San Francisco, California, December 14-18, 2009
• USGS cosponsors the special session Fate and Behavior of Pharmaceuticals in Treated Wastewaters, Sludge and River Waters at the SETAC 30th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, Louisiana, November 19-23, 2009
• The USGS sponsored the special session Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals--Analytical Methods and Environment Processes at the SETAC 30th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, Louisiana, November 19-23, 2009
• USGS and Montana Tech of the University of Montana co-sponsor the Special Session Diurnal Biogeochemical Processes in Rivers, Lakes, and Shallow Groundwater at the 2009 GSA Annual Meeting, Portland, Oregon, October 18-21, 2009
• USGS science featured at the AAAS symposium San Francisco Bay: Tracking and Understanding a Changing Estuary, San Francisco, California, August 17, 2009

New Publications

Upcoming Publications

• Simultaneous oxidation of arsenic and Antimony at low and circumneutral pH, with and without microbial catalysis: Asta, M.P., Kirk Nordstrom, D., and Blaine McCleskey, R., Applied Geochemistry, doi:10.1016/j.apgeochem.2011.09.002 (IN PRESS).
• Contamination of nonylphenolic compounds in creek water, wastewater treatment plant effluents, and sediments from Lake Shihwa and vicinity, Korea--Comparison with fecal pollution: Choi, M., Furlong, E.T., Moon, H.-B., Yu, J., and Choi, H.-G., Chemosphere, doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2011.08.016 (IN PRESS).
• Earthworm bioassays and seed germination for monitoring biosolids toxicity, aging and bioaccumulation of anthropogenic waste indicator compounds in biosolids-amended soil: Kinney, C.A., Campbell, B.R., Thompson, R., Furlong, E.T., Kolpin, D.W., Burkardt, M.R., Zaugg, S.D., Werner, S.L., and Hay, A.G., Environmental Science and Technology (IN PRESS).
• Litterfall mercury dry deposition in the Eastern USA: Risch, M.R., DeWild, J.F., Krabbenhoft, D.P., Kolka, R.K., and Zhang, L., Environmental Pollution, doi:10.1016/j.envpol.2011.06.005 (IN PRESS).
• Chiral pesticides--Identification, description, and environmental implications: Ulrich, E.M., Morrison, C.N., Goldsmith, M.R., and Foreman, W.T., Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology (IN PRESS).
• Perils of correlating CUSUM-transformed variables to infer ecological relationships (Breton et al. 2006, Glibert 2010): Cloern, J.E., and others, a., Limnology and Oceangraophy (IN PRESS).
• Population dynamics of Corbicula fluminea (Müller, 1774) in mesohaline and oligohaline habitats--Invasion success in a southern Europe estuary: Franco, J.N., Ceia, F.R., Patrício, J., Modesto, V., Thompson, J., Marques, J.C., and Neto, J.M., Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, doi:10.1016/j.ecss.2011.07.014 (IN PRESS).
• Methylation of Hg downstream from the Bonanza Hg mine, Oregon: Gray, J., Hines, M.H., Krabbenhoft, D.P., and Thoms, B., Applied Geochemistry, p. 9 (IN PRESS).
• Mercury export from the Yukon River Basin and potential response to a changing climate: Schuster, P., Striegl, R., Aiken, G., Krabbenhoft, D., DeWild, J., Butler, K., Kamark, B., and Dornblaser, M., Environmental Science and Technology (IN PRESS).
• Mercury distribution and lipid oxidation in fish muscle--Effects of washing and isoelectric protein precipitation: Yuansheng, G., Krabbenhoft, D.P., Liping, R., Egelandsdal, B., and Richards, M.P., Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry (IN PRESS).

Newly Published

• Fish endocrine disruption responses to a major wastewater treatment facility upgrade: Barber, L.B., Vajda, A.M., Douville, C., Norris, D.O., and Writer, J.H., 2012, Environmental Science and Technology, doi:10.1021/es202880e.
• Evaluating remedial alternatives for an acid mine drainage stream--A model post audit: Runkel, R.L., Kimball, B.A., Walton-Day, K., Verplanck, P.L., and Broshears, R.E., Environmental Science and Technology, v. 46, no. 1, p. 340-347, doi:10.1021/es2038504 (IN PRESS).
• Effects of the antimicrobial sulfamethoxazole on groundwater bacterial enrichment: Underwood, J.C., Harvey, R.W., Metge, D.W., Repert, D.A., Baumgartner, L.K., Smith, R.L., Roane, T.M., and Barber, L.B., 2011, Environmental Science and Technology, v. 45, no. 7, p. 3096-3101, doi:10.1021/es103605e.
• Explaining differences between bioaccumulation measurements in laboratory and field data through use of a probabilistic modeling approach: Selck, H., Drouillard, K., Eisenreich, K., Koelmans, A.A., Palmqvist, A., Ruus, A., Salvito, D., Schultz, I., Stewart, R., Weisbrod, A., van den Brink, N.W., and van den Heuvel-Greve, M., 2011, Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management, doi:10.1002/ieam.217 (Advanced Web release).
• Formation of nanocolloidal metacinnabar in mercury-DOM-sulfide systems: Gerbig, C.A., Kim, C.S., Stegemeier, J.P., Ryan, J.N., and Aiken, G.R., 2011, Environmental Science and Technology, doi:10.1021/es201837h (Advanced Web release).
• Projected evolution of California's San Francisco Bay-Delta-River system in a century of climate change: Cloern, J.E., Knowles, N., Brown, L.R., Cayan, D., Dettinger, M.D., Morgan, T.L., Schoellhamer, D.H., Stacey, M.T., van der Wegen, M., Wagner, R.W., and Jassby, A.D., 2011, PLoS ONE, v. 6, no. 9, p. e24465, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0024465.
• Spatial and seasonal variability of dissolved methylmercury in two stream basins in the eastern United States: Bradley, P.M., Burns, D.A., Murray, K.R., Brigham, M.E., Button, D.T., Chasar, L.C., Marvin-DiPasquale, M., Lowery, M.A., and Journey, C.A., 2011, Environmental Science and Technology, v. 45, no. 6, p. 2048-2055, doi:10.1021/es103923j.
• Reproductive endocrine disruption in smallmouth bass (Micropterus dolomieu) in the Potomac River Basin--Spatial and temporal comparisons of biological effects: Blazer, V., Iwanowicz, L., Henderson, H., Mazik, P., Jenkins, J., Alvarez, D., and Young, J., 2011, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, p. 26, doi:10.1007/s10661-011-2266-5 (Advanced Web release).
• Role of biofilms in sorptive removal of steroidal hormones and 4-nonylphenol compounds from streams: Writer, J.H., Ryan, J.N., and Barber, L.B., 2011, Environmental Science and Technology, v. 45, no. 17, p. 7275-7283, doi:10.1021/es2008038.
• Methods for evaluating in-stream attenuation of trace organic compounds: Writer, J.H., Keefe, S.K., Ryan, J.N., Ferrer, I., Thurman, M.E., and Barber, L.B., 2011, Applied Geochemistry, v. 26, Supplement, p. S344-S345, doi:10.1016/j.apgeochem.2011.03.071.
• Biodegradation and attenuation of steroidal hormones and alkylphenols by stream biofilms and sediments: Writer, J.H., Barber, L.B., Ryan, J.N., and Bradley, P.M., 2011, Environmental Science and Technology, v. 45, no. 10, p. 4370-4376, doi:10.1021/es2000134.
• Occurrence of antibiotic resistance and characterization of resistance genes and integrons in Enterobacteriaceae isolated from integrated fish farms in south China: Su, H.-C., Ying, G.-G., Tao, R., Zhang, R.-Q., Fogarty, L.R., and Kolpin, D.W., 2011, Journal of Environmental Monitoring (Advanced Web release).
• Source identification of Florida Bay's methylmercury problem--Mainland runoff versus atmospheric deposition and in situ production: Rumbold, D., Evans, D., Niemczyk, S., Fink, L., Laine, K., Howard, N., Krabbenhoft, D., and Zucker, M., 2011, Estuaries and Coasts, v. 34, no. 3, p. 494-513, doi:10.1007/s12237-010-9290-5.
• Diurnal trends in methylmercury concentration in a wetland adjacent to Great Salt Lake, Utah, USA: Naftz, D.L., Cederberg, J.R., Krabbenhoft, D.P., Beisner, K.R., Whitehead, J., and Gardberg, J., 2011, Chemical Geology, v. 283, no. 1-2, p. 78-86, doi:10.1016/j.chemgeo.2011.02.005.