December 2019

December 8 – a beautiful day. Highs in the upper 60s and sunny. Tomorrow will be a bit warmer, then temperatures drop to the 40s. Welcome to Texas weather.

Since our last visit there has been very little rain and the stream shows it. The water level is low; it would be easy to cross to the south bank just upstream of the bridge. I stood in the middle of the stream to take a couple of photos. Another indicator of little to no rain: the extensive algae. Upstream of the sample site in the shallow water, I was amazed at the algae growth. Last month there was no surface algae and very little submerged algae. Now there was a lot of surface algae (50-75% coverage) and extensive submerged strings.

Further upstream, the “sometime island” rocks in the middle appeared to be out of the water and dry. Although I could have walked up to them with dry feet, I didn’t want to bend double to get under the low-hanging branches that stretched over the stream. And the inlet where I stood had been dry long enough that some greenery was growing.

The waterfall was still gurgling a bit, but water was only flowing over less than half of its width. Water was still flowing down the culvert but not as strongly as last month. And the culvert had a fair amount of (new?) trash in it, along with pools with a scummy surface. Sad. There was also a net bag caught on a branch at the sample site.

Downstream of the bridge by the trail crossing the gravel bar now extends from the north side nearly across to the south bank, so it’s easy to cross with dry feet. There’s only a thin stream that trickles through that spot. Thus, the surface of the water directly below the gravel bar is rather scummy. There’s more trash around there and downstream of the bridge the stream surface was littered with leaves.

Didn’t see any fish, pigeons (pigeon poop is a possible e-coli source) or other birds. And for the first time in a long time, there was no confirmed e-coli in either the sample site or the control site near the waterfall. There were definitely other bacteria, but none were definitely e-coli.

Observations:

Air temp: 16 C
Water temp 14 C
Dissolved Oxygen 7.0
Specific Conductance 570
pH 7.0
Nitrates: < 0.3
Transparency: > 1.2 Meters

sample site from streamside

closeup of sample site

sample site from north bank

downstream view from under bridge

stream from bridge to near trail from north bank

stream from trail to under bridge

trail crossing and gravel bar

stream from bridge to trail crossing

stream under bridge

gravel bar closeup

upstream side of bridge

closeup of upstream bridge side

upstream view from under bridge

upstream north bank view from under bridge

view of stream from above culvert

culvert w trash from sidewalk

trash in culvert

stream from waterfall to culvert

waterfall area

waterfall with algae

waterfall and and above with algae

inlet and above

algae above waterfall

closeup of waterfall and algae

algae near inlet

closeup of algae above inlet

downstream view near inlet

low stream above inlet

dissolved oxygen 7.0