December 2010 Monitoring

December 5 – the weather was beautiful – many high clouds and sun – and cool:  11 degrees C ( 52 F). water temp was 13 C (55 F).  Had we monitored yesterday we could have worn shorts instead of jackets – it was in the upper 70s.  As the saying goes, if you don’t like the weather, wait a bit and it will change.

There’s been no significant rain for nearly 2 months – none since the last month’s monitoring. Hope we aren’t in another drought, though all the grass is looking brown and dry and it’s looking like we are. It’s also been unseasonably warm, reaching into the 80s – nearly record highs (and we did break the high temp record a couple of times). I’m ready for cool weather to stick around!

No rain means the creek is very low. There’s no current at all, and much of the surface is covered with a film, algae and some trash (plastic shopping bags, soda and beer cans, styrofoam food containers). Yuk. Even so, we did see several schools of tiny minnows swimming around the algae. The waterfall above stream is reduced to a bare trickle, and is choked by algae.

Despite no rain in nearly 2 months, still the storm drain above the bridge has a steady trickle. And the water in that feeder just above the sidewalk by the outlet is a grayish brown (more than the photo shows). Even so, the e-coli count is the lowest we’ve seen: practically none both at the storm drain and above it, and about 250 colonies downstream of the storm drain.

Looking at these photos where the stream is a few inches deep not very wide and thinking back to the last flood a few months ago when we had (I think) 10″ of rain and the river rose up both sides under the bridge really shows the power of Nature.

Right now the stream is very clear – little or no floating particulate matter. The transparency tube showed it clear was over 1.2 meters, the pH is the same as usual, 7.5 , and the specific conductance is 660.

sample site sample site from north bank

sample site sample site from north bank – low water & algae

sample site closeup, film on water

looking downstream from the sample site

crossing area, sample site & downstream

trail crossing area-algae

upstream algae from sample site below bridge

stream w algae & bridge from north bank

much surface algae!

stream & south bank between bridge & sample site – more algae

upstream view with north bank from under bridge

closeup of water under bridge

storm drain & resulting stream

storm drain inflow – more clumps of algae

upstream bed from under bridge

inflow to storm drain – it looked grayer than the photo shows

looking downstream to bridge

waterfall area & rocks & algae

looking downstream to the bridge

upstream of storm drain near the waterfall

closeup-scum near waterfall

algae covered waterfall area

closeup algae by waterfall

above waterfall area

minnows swim around the algae

low stream above the bridge

very low water upstream of the bridge