Philip Kaufmann

By David V. Peck, Steven G. Paulsen, Philip R. Kaufmann and Alan T. Herlihy

An early naturalist described lakes as “jewels” across the landscape and indeed they were…at the end of the nineteenth century. As we settled the country and began to utilize the lake resource for our needs, things changed. Additionally, our needs for water brought about the construction of impoundments from ice ponds to small stock ponds up to mainstem impoundments along our major rivers. The lake resource in the United States now includes natural lakes in our northern tier of states, unique physiographic regions such as Florida and the Sand Hills of Nebraska, and the mountainous regions, and impoundments scattered across the entire landscape. In this chapter, we will describe efforts by an unique partnership between the individual states and tribal nations of the USA and the US Environmental Protection Agency to monitor and assess these systems. These efforts go beyond single water quality (chemistry) issues and include assessments targeting the goal of the Clean Water Act, namely, restoring, maintaining, and protecting the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation’s lakes and reservoirs.

Part of the book: Water Quality

By Steven G. Paulsen, David V. Peck, Philip R. Kaufmann and Alan T. Herlihy

The goal of the Clean Water Act (CWA) is to restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the waters in the United States. Much of the monitoring and assessment is reasonably delegated to the States to monitor and report the condition of their water to Congress through the Environmental Protection Agency. States have historically been fully occupied in monitoring the most egregious water quality problems along with select high priority water bodies. This approach, while addressing State priorities with finite resources, does not capture the full spectrum and scope of water quality conditions within and across State boundaries. Hence, the reporting on progress in meeting the goals of the CWA has not been realized. In this chapter, we describe the partnership between EPA, the States and Tribes to remedy this information gap for rivers and streams. Filling this gap requires both improved monitoring designs to reflect conditions across all waters as well as the expansion of indicators to move beyond water chemistry to include all three elements of the CWA goal—chemical, physical and biological integrity.

Part of the book: Water Quality