Northeast Temperate Network water quality report, 2006-2009: Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller NHP

Gawley, William

This is the first report on the water quality of Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park (MABI) generated by the Northeast Temperate Network (NETN) Water Quality Monitoring Program. This report includes data gathered in the first 4 years of the monitoring program (2006-2009) and displays these results in graphic form, accompanied by a brief interpretation.The NETN Freshwater Monitoring Protocol (Lombard et al. 2006) describes monitoring metrics for the NETN water quantity and water chemistry vital signs. These metrics are water quality, nutrient enrichment, water quantity, and the detection of invasive plant species. These metrics were chosen to address the National Park Service (NPS) Inventory and Monitoring Program objective to detect change in the status of physical, chemical, or biological attributes of ecosystems.The NETN freshwater monitoring protocol calls for one pond and one stream site in MABI to be sampled monthly from May through October. A cooperator from the University of Vermont measured physical and in-situ water chemistry parameters each month, and gathered an early- and late-summer water sample at each site for analysis at a contract water quality lab. In 2006 and for most analyses in 2007, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Water Quality Laboratory (NWQL) analyzed the samples; otherwise the University of Maine’s Sawyer Environmental Chemistry Research Laboratory conducted the analyses. All monitoring data were incorporated into a series of comprehensive databases that ultimately feed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) “STORET” data system, the repository for all NPS water quality and quantity data.

Northeast Temperate Network water quality report, 2006-2009: Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller NHP

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