The President's "Water Message to Congress on Water Policy Reform," transmitted June 6, 1978, as well as subsequent implementing directives, instructs the departments and agencies of the Federal Government to carry out policy reforms. The purpose of these policy reforms is to develop a more comprehensive and integrated approach to national water-resources management in light of emerging significant problems. Initiatives set forth include improvement in water planning, environment quality, water-resources management, and water conservation.

Nineteen interagency task forces were formed to identify and recommend ways to implement the stated initiatives. Task force leadership for two of the concerns, ground-water supply and instream flows, was assigned to the Geological Survey.

The Ground-Water Supply Task Force focused its efforts on improved consideration of the ground-water resource in Federal water planning and on expanded Federal cooperation with the States in order to resolve ground-water problems. The Task Force concluded that the ground-water resource is only weakly represented in the Federal water-planning process, and the final report

offered specific recommendations, including institutional, planning, and other fundamental steps.

The Task Force also concluded that formal procedures should be established for collaboration and mutual technical and program assistance with the States to insure high levels of interchange and coordination, and it specified methods of accomplishment.

Finally, the Task Force proposed a National GroundWater Advisory Commission as an effective means for confronting the policy, management, and legal predicaments surrounding the Nation's ground-water resources; for addressing the role of ground water in land and water utilization and protection efforts; and for recommending the necessary fundamental steps for overall improvement of national ground-water utilization and protection.

"Instream-flow" needs relate to the various instream uses of water and the amount of water needed to satisfy those uses. In that context, the Instream Flows Task Force addressed six major areas defined by the President.

Public workshops were held throughout the Nation. Seven reports document the conclusions and recommendations of the Instream Flows Task Force and the Ground-Water Supply Task Force.

COAL HYDROLOGY PROGRAM

The passage of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (SMCRA) set national policy regarding the control of the surface effects of coal mining on the environment. The potential for adverse impacts on water resources and the need to assess and to mitigate these potential impacts received considerable attention in the Act. One section of the Act (507(b) (11)) requires the "appropriate Federal or State agency" to "provide hydrologic information on the general area" to the mining permit applicant. The Congress recognized that this requirement could not be met by existing hydrologic data systems and, therefore, authorized new funds to begin acquiring the necessary information.

To meet the responsibility imposed by this new program, the Survey first analyzed the existing water-data networks in the coal regions of the Nation by using the requirements of SMCRA to assess network adequacy. The following general areas of deficiency were identified: (1) the lack of data on smaller drainage areas, (2) the need for additional water-quality information, and (3) the need for sediment data.

The Program, which has been implemented to remedy these deficiencies, has several facets. First, additional water-quality and sediment data collection was initiated at existing continuous record surface-water stations. Some of these continuous record stations have been designed as trend or reference stations. Trend stations are those downstream from major mining activities and will be used to evaluate the long-term impacts of mining and reclamation on stream flow and water quality. Reference stations are also long-term stations, but they were selected in areas unlikely to be influenced by mining. These stations will provide background data on natural variability and the effects of changes other than mining on the stream system. New trend and reference sites will be chosen and gages installed as dictated by changing needs and analysis of the data now being collected. By far the most numerous stations are synoptic measurement sites at which seasonal flow-event-related measurements are made and water samples collected for analysis for selected constituents. This network of synoptic stations provides broad areal coverage while also providing data on relatively small watersheds. An example of the surface-water data station activity being used to support SMCRA is shown by the figure below. This is the network now being operated in Ten

nessee.

Continuous record surface-water station,

partially or completely funded by Coal Program

Synoptic surface-water data site funded by Coal Program

Trend surface-water station, partially or completely funded by Coal Program

Existing surface-water station, not funded by Coal Program

RIVER-QUALITY
ASSESSMENTS

The objectives of the Geological Survey's River-Quality Assessment Program are to define the character, interrelationships, and causes of existing river-quality conditions and to devise and to demonstrate the approaches needed for developing technically sound information that decisionmakers can use in evaluating alternatives for river-quality management.

River-quality problems basically stem from two factors-the unique hydrology of a river basin and man's development and use of the land and water resources. In the broadest context, river-quality assessment is a problem-oriented approach for developing information that is appropriate and adequate for sound resource management.

Since initiation of the Survey's River-Quality Assessment Program in 1973, assessments have been made of the Willamette River, Ore., the Yampa River basin, ColoradoWyoming, and the Upper Chattahoochee River basin, Georgia. Assessments presently underway include those on the Potomac River Estuary, Washington, D.C., the Truckee and Carson River basins, Nevada-California, the Schuylkill River, Pa., and the Apalachicola River, Fla.

The Potomac Estuary Study is a joint river-quality assessment and research project which began in fiscal year 1977 and will continue through fiscal year 1982. The purpose of the assessment is to develop the information required to evaluate alternatives for managing water quality in the tidal Potomac River and Potomac Estuary. The objective is to determine the relative impacts of municipal discharges, combined sewer overflows, urban runoff, and upstream runoff (upstream from the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area) on dissolved oxygen (DO) depletion and algal growth problems. A specific question is whether improvement in water quality can be achieved by advanced treatment of wastewaters, including denitrification, at the Blue Plains Treatment Plant. Such a measure would be operationally expensive. Therefore, an analysis of potential improvements in water quality is needed.

The Potomac River Quality Assessment is composed of three integrated elements: DO dynamics, algal growth dynamics, and materials transport. The DO element is designed to provide information on the source of all materials and on the processes which might affect DO levels in the tidal Potomac River. The work focuses on the five major processes affecting DO-carbonaceous deoxygenation, nitrification, deoxygenation by materials in benthic deposits, algal production-respiration, and reaeration. The first four processes remove oxygen from water, and preliminary investigations indicate that each is occurring at rates significant to cause major influences on DO levels in the tidal Potomac River.

The algal dynamics element has a twofold thrust: to ascertain the impact on DO levels of algal production and respiration and to determine the relative roles of different major nutrients, particularly nitrogen and phosphorous, in controlling the amount and species of algae that grow in the Potomac Estuary. One specific objective is to determine how nitrogen and phosphorus levels affect the timing and location of nuisance algal growths. A second specific objective is to collect information from all elements of the study to determine the sources of the nutrients that trigger undesirable algal growths. The important question is whether additional removal of major nutrients from municipal discharges, especially Blue Plains, would be sufficient to halt the undesirable growths.

The transport station element unifies the DO and algal elements of the assessment and also links the assessment and research components of the overall Potomac Estuary Study. In the transport station work, measurement cross sections have been established at Chain Bridge, Alexandria, Quantico, 301 Bridge, and Piney Point. Water samples are collected at these sections two to four times weekly and analyzed for nutrients, oxygen-demanding substances, and suspended sediment. The data will be used as input to a flow model to follow the movement of these substances through the estuary.

The research component of the Potomac Estuary Study is designed to answer specific questions concerning estuarine dynamics and to contribute important data and information to the assessment component.

The research is comprised of six projects concerned with geochemistry, geomorphology, hydrodynamics, sediment transport, benthic ecology, and submerged vegetation. The geochemistry project is particularly important to the assessment component because it focuses on phosphorous cycling, especially the exchange of phosphorous between the water column and river-bed sediments.

Those working on the benthic ecology project made a discovery of major economic importance in fiscal year 1979 when surveys documented the first appearance in the estuary of the Asian hard-shelled clam, Corbicula. The Asian clam represents a potential nuisance because it is known to clog water-intake pipes.

The basins of the Truckee and Carson Rivers encompass 7,250 square miles spanning the California-Nevada State line in the Lake Tahoe area. Within the basins are the rapidly growing Reno-Carson City area (Nevada's second largest socioeconomic area), intense recreational development surrounding Lake Tahoe, and some of the most productive agricultural lands in Nevada. Both rivers traverse rapidly developing valleys between their headwaters in the Sierra Nevada Range and their termini in the deserts of Nevada. During the traverse, flow and quality are greatly diminished in each river by agricultural withdrawals coupled with agricultural wastewater returns and urban runoff.

The Truckee River ends in Pyramid Lake, a semisaline water body that is the habitat of two unique fish, the Lahontan cutthroat trout (Salmo Clarki Henshawaii) and the Cui-ui lakesucker (Chasmistes Cujus), on the endangered and threatened species list. The Carson River ends in agricultural return flows into a desert sink. The two basins are interconnected in the headwaters by diversion of treated municipal wastes from the Lake Tahoe basin and in their lower reaches by diversions from the lower Truckee River for irrigation of reclaimed lands in the Carson Desert. The long-term sustained water supply in the Truckee River basin will soon be insufficient to satisfy competing demands for agriculture, municipal supply, waste assimilation, fish maintenance, and recreation.

The major goal of the Truckee and Carson Rivers Study is development of methods for conducting river

quality assessments in water-short areas. The program design treats the two interconnected basins as one hydrologic unit for the consideration of water-quality problems. The study has two major objectives: to document the existing hydrologic and institutional frameworks to provide the necessary basis for assessing river quality and to perform detailed evaluation of critical problems in specific reaches.

To meet the objectives, the Truckee and Carson Rivers Assessment has devised the following major elements: (1) development of a hydrologic atlas to fully describe, for the first time, the hydrologic characteristics of the basins, (2) detailing of the legal, institutional, and structural development of water resources in the basins and the current problems and conflicts, (3) development of a workshop approach to involve local management in the direction and results of the study, (4) development of a comprehensive streamflow model encompassing both basins to provide a quantitative hydrologic framework for water-quality analysis, (5) development of a water-quality transport model for dissolved oxygen and other constituents in selected reaches of the Truckee River, and (6) a detailed examination of selected fish habitats for specified reaches of the Truckee River.

The assessment is designed to provide a hydrologic overview of the twobasin system and to specially examine DO and fish-habitat-related problems in the Truckee River below Reno. The workshop will enable local water-quality managers to have input to the assessment and to have results described and discussed in great detail. The workshop will also point up other problems that will require future evaluation.

Waters of the Schuylkill River are used heavily for municipal and industrial water supply, recreation, and waste assimilation. Previous studies by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources (DER) have indicated numerous water-quality problems, of which DER considers the presence of trace metals and trace organic substances to be the most significant. The presence of trace substances is a concern from the standpoint of both the welfare of the general public and the protection of the aquatic ecosystem of the Schuylkill River and Delaware

Estuary. Post-DER studies and a re

cent survey of river-bed sediments by the project staff have found high concentrations of trace metals and organic compounds that are considered to be priority toxic pollutants by the Environmental Protection Agency. These include lead, chromium, cadmium, copper, zinc, nickel, PCB's, chlordane, DDT, DDE, and DDD.

The Schuylkill River-Quality Assessment has two major objectives: to determine the source areas, distribution, and transport mechanisms of trace metals and trace organic substances in the Schuylkill River basin and to generally devise and demonstrate approaches, strategies, and methods for sampling trace substances in a river for the purpose of providing information suitable for planning and management.

Results of the study are intended to provide basin planners with useful information for managing trace substances occurrence. Potential management options include controlling or eliminating the sources of such substances and controlling the distribution of trace substances that attach to sediment through a program of periodic dredging of pools in the lower Schuylkill River.

The Apalachicola River is part of a relatively undisturbed river-wetland system whose extensive flood plain is inundated several months each year.

The flood plain supports a great diversity and biomass of vegetation that provides an important source of nutrients and detritus (particulate organic matter) to the river system.

The Apalachicola Study has two major objectives: to devise and to evaluate approaches and methods for assessing the interrelations between hydrologic processes and the supply of nutrients and detritus transported from a wetland and to initiate the development of the data base required for eventual assessment of the impacts of river alterations on the Apalachicola system. The problemsolving orientation of other assessments cannot be followed because suitable field methodologies are presently lacking to assess the important wetland processes and their relationships.

The Apalachicola River basin is ideally suited for testing an array of general wetland assessment approaches and specific methods. The main processes addressed are (1) the relationship between flood plain hydrodynamics and flood plain tree communities, (2) the production and decomposition of leaf litter to produce nutrients and detritus, and (3) the transport of nutrients and organic matter from the flood plain. The net effect of these processes is the export of nutrients and detritus to Apalachicola Bay where these substances are utilized by abundant oyster, crab, and shrimp populations.

In recent years, the pollution level of many streams has declined as a result of efforts to clean up the discharges from industrial and municipal watertreatment plants. This reduction in pollution from point sources has made more obvious the extent of pollution from nonpoint sources such as urban streets. Definition of the urban storm-water pollution component has become a critical need in the effort to clean up the Nation's waters.

Prior to the last decade, the principal involvement of the Geological Survey in the field of urban hydrology was related to the flood potential of urban storm runoff. More recently, with impetus from the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (Public Law 92-500, Section 208), significant concern has been directed toward the problem of water-quality degradation resulting from urban runoff. During the past 6 years, pilot studies of urban storm-water quality were conducted in Denver, Colo., Portland, Ore., Philadelphia, Pa., and in the Miami and south Florida area. Much was learned from these studies relating to the collection and analysis of storm-water data. A finding in the Portland study was that concentrations of settleable solids and coliform bacteria in storm runoff were at times higher than in discharge from secondary waste-treatment plants.

A new program of urban storm-water studies was begun in 1979. The studies are patterned after the four pilot projects recently completed, but the goals have

been broadened to meet the combined objectives of the Survey and the Environmental Protection Agency. An agreement between the two agencies specifies collaboration on a number of studies with the objective of establishing a nationwide data base and preparing interpretive reports that can assist local agencies in planning the management of urban storm water. Additional objectives are to develop methods of transferring study results to other areas and to test the effectiveness of management alternatives aimed at reducing pollutants washed into streams and lakes.

New studies were underway or were started in the following metropolitan areas during 1979: Bellevue, Wash., Denver, Colo., Long Island, N.Y., Rochester, N.Y., Milwaukee, Wisc., Salt Lake City, Utah, Chicago, III., Topeka, Kan., Minneapolis, Minn., and Salem, Ore.

These studies entail a data collection program for 2 to 3 years. Rainfall, runoff, and water-quality data are being collected on from 3 to 10 typical urban watersheds in each metropolitan area with the use of automatic recording and water-sampling equipment. The multiple water samples collected during each storm are analyzed for 20 or more water-quality constituents. These data are interpreted by using statistical procedures and complex watershed models. The results will be used to assess the magnitude of pollution from urban storm water compared to that from point sources and to test the effectiveness of management alternatives.