Water Quality Assessment and Design in New York

By Madison Langweil

With a focus on the Lower Hudson River, the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) gave an overview of their sampling design and water assessment strategies in their Rotating Integrated Basin Studies Program (RIBS). Brian Duffy, NYS DEC Researcher, took his virtual audience through their usage with aquatic macroinvertebrates as water quality indicators that are commonly found in streams and rivers.

Duffy, featured in this Hudson River Watershed Alliance Watershed Breakfast Series, highlighted the importance and significance of biomonitoring that he and his fellow colleagues have taken part in.

Biomonitoring is the practice of observing and analyzing the ongoing changes in condition of waterbodies like rivers, lakes, streams and ponds by using organisms like invertebrates, insects and plants that live in the area.

In their work, they primarily use macroinvertebrates because of their inexpensive and abundant nature, lack of mobility, high sensitivity to change and their overall good indication of water quality.

Duffy and his colleagues monitor the water quality by the waterbody type: rivers and streams are monitored by biological monitoring, Water Assessment by Volunteer Evaluators (WAVE) and toxicity, while lakes, ponds and reservoirs are monitored via harmful algal blooms (HABs) and the Citizen Statewide Lake Assessment Program (CSLAP).

Monitoring operates in a cycle that Duffy says begins and ends with assessment. The cycle begins with WAVE, followed by screening in the first year and then special studies. In three to five years, assessment updates and plan development with restoration strategies are initiated. This process is specifically designed for streams and rivers that also have ongoing CSLAP and NYHABS routines.

To continue such work, there are specific location parameters that are practiced as well as screening parameter routines.

“The routine network is a network that is made up of 40 sites across a range of water body sizes and condition across the state to really get at the long-term trend conditions of our water across the state,” Duffy said. “We take a very representative approach to sampling for routine programing.”

There is consistent modification made to their methodologies when assessing the water quality. Unimpacted conditions and impacted conditions are both considered to help “modify and refine our sample collection and assessment methodologies to best reflect the evolving needs for better assessment and data in the assessment process,” Duffy said. He says that the various screening network parameters come from the special “tool box” that have additional surveying methods that best suit the environment like sediment chemistry, algal toxicity and macroinvertebrate tissue chemistry.

Anyone can volunteer and participate in the collection of bugs in the WAVE program that then generally takes up to three hours for collection screening. “[It’s] really easy and really fun to do,” he says.

To limit their human impact on the environment, Duffy says they have “connected our biological assessments to protect the fishing use. There’s been some changing ways in which that’s been applied in recent years,” he says.

“In 2022, we will be conducting our screening of the basin and will be holding a kick-off next year right around the end of April where we will be talking about our plan for the basin in that year,” he said.