THE GREAT RIVERS NEWS
,™
United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
EPA/620/N-06/003 Vol. 2 No. 3
June 2006
eNVIRONMBNTAU MONITORJNq ANIi ASS6SSM6NT
PROGRAM
J
It's Time Again For EMAP-GRE Training
A flotilla of training in pool 26 (Alton, IL)on the Mississippi
River in 2005.
The annual 2006 EMAP-GRE train-
ing will be held at two locations this
year. The main event will be held
June 20-21 in St. Louis, MO. The
classroom portion will be held at the
Holiday Inn Riverport on the 20th.
The field portion will be held on the
Missouri River on the 21st. We will
assemble at 8 AM at the Blanchette
landing in St. Charles, MO, about 6
miles from the Holiday Inn River-
port. This training is a great oppor-
tunity to mix and mingle among
people to see how other crews have
approached field logistics and
solved issues related to sampling.
Please make your reservations at
the Holiday Inn Riverport (314) 298-
3400, St. Louis, MO.
Another training session will be held
in Lake City, MN. The training is 2
days with the river portion to be
held on the Mississippi River. All
crews should make every effort to
attend the main training session in
St. Louis, MO as hotel and class-
room space is very limited at the
Lake City training. Contact Mark
Pearson at pearson.mark@.epa.qov
for more information about this
training. We all look forward to see-
ing both old and new faces as we
prepare for another successful
EMAP-GRE field season.
Missouri River Meeting Focuses on Water Quality Issues
Larry Shepard (Region7/USEPA)
EPA ORD- Midwest Ecology Divi-
sion, Region 7 (Kansas City), and
Region 8 (Denver) sponsored a
workshop in Omaha, NE on May
2-3, 2006 to familiarize all atten-
dees with existing water quality
monitoring and assessment
frameworks for the mainstem
Missouri River. A discussion en-
sued of the need for a forum
under which efforts to monitor,
assess, and protect the water
quality of the Missouri River
mainstem would be better coordi-
nated among tribal, state, and
federal entities. The 2-day facili-
tated workshop included presen-
tations from each of the 7 main-
stem river states on the design of
their river monitoring network and
on their use of water quality data
L for the river in meeting Clean
Water Act requirements. Presen-
tations were also made by sev-
eral federal agencies, including
EPA ORD's EMAP-GRE staff, on
the nature and purpose of their
Missouri River water quality moni-
toring and assessment activities
and needs. Most of the workshop
was dedicated to discussion
among state and federal agency
representatives about the need to
develop and support a unified
vision of Missouri River water
quality management.
Staff from water quality manage-
ment agencies for all 7 mainstem
states, U.S. Geological Survey,
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,
and EPA attended the workshop.
Staff from the Central Plains Cen-
ter for Bioassessment at the Uni-
versity of Kansas also attended.
The executive director of the Up-
per Mississippi River Basin Asso-
ciation, Holly Stoerker, spoke and
provided participants with the
perspective of another organiza-
tion working on large river water
quality management.
After extensive discussion, par-
ticipants agreed that a water
quality forum for the Missouri
River was needed, but that lim-
ited state and federal staff re-
sources required a better under-
standing of which water quality
issues should serve as the focus
of such a "forum." Initially, the
group viewed more water quality
data as the most pressing need.
The group felt that the paucity of
water quality data encourages
inconsistent water quality assess-
ments by individual states and
limits the ability of states and
tribes to develop more appropri-
ate water quality standards for
the river. There was consensus
that the group should develop a
statement of purpose which iden-
tifies water quality issues, which
are best addressed collectively in
a coordinated manner rather than
individually. Participants devel-
oped a list of issues and priori-
tized those to identify which
should be considered initially.
Several participants agreed to
clarify the list of water quality
priorities for group consideration
and will reassemble via a confer-
ence call.
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Page 2
THE GREAT RIVERS NEWS
LETTER
EMAP-GRE Data Being Presented Around the Nation
Mark Pearson (NHEERL/ORD/USEPA)
Several research scientists from
the EPA Mid-Continent Ecology
Division (MED) and the USGS
Long Term Resource Monitoring
Program (LTRMP) will be pre-
senting data collected for the
EMAP-GRE project at the Inter-
national Conference on Rivers
and Civilization meeting In La-
Crosse, Wl, June 25-28, 2006.
Ted Angradi (MED) will be pre-
senting a paper titled: A Refer-
ence Approach For the Great
Rivers of the Central Basin:
The Ohio, Missouri, And Upper
Mississippi Rivers; Debra Tay-
lor (MED) will present a paper
titled: From Data to Informa-
tion: Development of Integra-
tive Habitat Indices for Great
River Ecosystems; and Andy
Bartels, Terry Dukerschein
(LTRMP Onalaska Field Station),
and Brian Ickes (Upper Midwest
Environmental Science Center)
will present a poster titled: Ex-
ploratory Analysis of Index of
Biotic Integrity Scores Calcu-
lated from Data Sets Obtained
from Three Different Day Elec-
trofishing Protocols. Igor Grig-
orovich and Kevin Stroom
(Wilson Environmental Laborato-
ries Inc., EPA contractor) will
present posters titled: Invasive
Mussel Species and the Integ-
rity of Large Rivers and Macro-
invertebrate Community Struc-
EMAP-GRE Indicator Workshop to be
held in Duluth, Oct. 24-26
At the last EMAP-GRE Tech-
nical Committee meeting in
Cincinnati (Jan. 2006), it was
decided that an indicator
workshop was needed to start
the task of developing Great
Rivers indicators using data
collected from the EMAP-GRE
project. The workshop has
been scheduled for Oct. 24-
26, 2006 in Duluth, MN. This
workshop will focus on the
development of EMAP-GRE
indicators for the purpose of
the EPA assessment of the
Upper Mississippi River Sys-
tem, including the Ohio and
Missouri Rivers. Travel sup-
port will be available for state
agency employees. This work-
shop is being arranged by the
Council of State Govern-
ments. Please set aside these
dates for this important work-
shop. More information will be
provided in future Great Riv-
ers Newsletters. Contact Mark
Pearson at pear-
son, mark@epa.gov for more
information.
ture in Large Rivers of the U.S.
Central Basin and Implications
for Field and Laboratory Ap-
proaches, respectively.
Brian Hill (MED) will present a
paper titled: Downstream Pat-
terns In C:N:P and Sediment
Microbial Enzyme Activity In
the Missouri, Upper Missis-
sippi and Ohio Rivers at the
54th annual meeting of the North
American Benthological Society,
June 4-9, 2006 in Anchorage,
AK.
Past Presentations using
EMAP-GRE Data
Alex Levchuk (LTRMP Havana
Field Station) presented a paper
at the Mississippi River Research
Consortium annual meeting in La
Crosse, Wl, April 27-28, 2006
using EMAP-GRE zooplankton
data. His paper was titled: Enu-
meration of Zooplankton Sam-
ples: Effects of Mesh Size on
Density Estimates of Cope-
pods, Cladocerans, and Roti-
fers.
Brian Hill (MED) presented a
paper titled: Demonstrating a
Consistent and Unified Ap-
proach for Monitoring and As-
sessing Ecological Conditions
of the Missouri, Mississippi,
and Ohio Rivers at the 5th Na-
tional Monitoring Conference in
San Jose, CA, May 7-11, 2006.
essment
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EMAP-GRE assessment scheme for the Great Rivers of the Central
Basin of the United States.
The Great Rivers Newsletter is periodic publication of the EPA's Mid-Continent Ecology Divi-
sion in Duluth, MN. The newsletter is designed to disseminate timely information about the
EMAP-GRE project among EPA investigators; state, federal, and tribal collaborators; and other
stakeholders. Contact Mark Pearson, editor (pearson.mark@epa.gov; 218-529-5205) to obtain
copies of the newsletter. The newsletter and other EMAP information can be found on this
website : www.epa.gov/emap/greatriver
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