November 2016 monitoring

November 18 – the end of the autumn heat wave is here! Ma Nature finally read the calendar and realized that upper 80s is just too hot for November. We’ve been breaking record highs too often; starting today the weather is set to cool down. Finally.

We finally had about an inch or 2 of rain 8 days ago, after virtually none during the entire month of October – quite different from last year with the Halloween flood! The stream shows the lack of rain. It’s low, though not quite as low as during our last visit. The stream’s surface is clear, though the culvert’s water looks rather nasty and is covered with scum. There is some new trash and natural debris in and around the stream, so apparently the recent rain was enough to raise the stream level temporarily.

There’s a lot of algae, both surface and underwater, upstream of the bridge. Didn’t see any fish, just saw the marks of small water bugs upstream as they moved around the water. Didn’t hear any pigeons or other birds. The waterfall was flowing over a small part in the middle of the stream. And I was able to walk up to the “sometime island” rocks further upstream.

The e-coli counts were very low: for 3 ML samples, the sample site only had about 83 colonies; the control site was slightly higher at 117 but both were well within acceptable limits for an urban stream.

Observations:

Air temp 20 C
water temp 19.5 C
dissolved oxygen 4.5
specific conductance 560
pH 7.0
nitrates .75
transparency (dissolved solids) > 1.2 meters

sample site and downstream from north bank

sample site from streamside

sample site from north bank

trail crossing area

trail crossing area and sample site from north bank

upstream view of gravel bar

gravel bar downstream side of bridge

4 columns under bridge

stream under bridge to trail crosssing from north bank

under bridge and downstream south bank from under bridge

upstream view from under bridge

stream from above culvert

stream from around culvert to waterfall

scummy culvert water

culvert and upstram from middle of streambed

waterfall area

waterfall area closeup

closeup of waterfall and downstream debris

stream and dry inlet above waterfall

downstreamview from inlet

upstream near sometime island rocks

closeup of dry sometimes island area

downstream view from sometime island area

dissolved oxygen 4.5