June 2018 monitoring

June 12, midday – getting pretty warm. Although so far we’ve only has two 100 degree days this year (it’s early for 100s), we’ve had many that “only” reached 98 or 99… with the heat index easily over 100. Looks like it’s gonna be another long, hot summer.

No significant rain since last month’s monitoring and the stream showed it. While walking down beside the culvert that carries runoff from the parking lot and beyond, I noticed a section of that culvert was again somewhat blocked and backed up so the surface is scummy. And there’s some new trash in the culvert.

The stream is low, low enough that above the waterfall the inlet is bone dry. And the “sometime island” rocks further upstream in the middle of the stream bed are also dry.  The waterfall is still running though only over less than half its width, and the upstream bridge column is completely out of the water.

The stream is low enough that it’s possible to cross at the trail downstream of the bridge with dry feet, and there’s no noticeable current there. Additionally, the gravel bar that has been between that trail for so long and the bridge is now completely gone.

The surface of the sample site is rather scummy. Upstream there was very little surface algae, and not too much of the submerged plants either.

There were no pigeons or other birds. The e-coli count was 0 for both the 3 ML samples for both the sample and control sites.

Observations:

air temp: 30,5 C (87 F)
water temp 27C (81 F)
dissolved oxygen 4.8
pH 7.0
specific conductance 460
nitrate 0.3
transparency .87 meter

sample site from north bank

sample site from stramside

stream from bridge to trail crossing

stream between bridge and trail crossing from north bank

stream downside of bridge

one column dry-low stream

upstream view from under bridge

stream from above storm culvert

stream around waterfall

low waterfall flow

stream above waterfall

downstream view from waterfall area

downstream view from inlet

dry inlet above waterfall

some underwater algae above inlet

low stream above inlet

dissolved oxygen 4.8