Current Studies
In recent years, West Virginia's Potomac drainage rivers and their watersheds
have become threatened by development, and industrial and agricultural growth.
To determine the effects of these changes in the watershed, our current research
program consists of three main projects:
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Deer exclusion fencing experiment
is designed to test an innovative and
relatively low cost method to protect riparian forest plantings from
destructive or even catastrophic damage from deer browsing
activities. |
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Farmers as Producers of Clean Water: Providing Economic Incentives for Reducing
Agricultural Non-point Pollution.
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The purpose of this
experiment is to examine farmers’ willingness and ability to
respond to performance-based conservation payments.
Our experimental
watershed, Cullers Run, is located in a rural area of the
Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia, USA. |
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| Revisiting the Baseline.
| Beginning in September
2005 and continuing in 2006, we will be revisiting many of the
original Cacapon baseline sites to
assess how they have changed. We are collecting standard field
chemistries (temperature, pH, conductivity) and preserving
samples for later nutrient analysis in the laboratory. However,
the Cacapon River Water Quality Monitoring program is much
better suited to studying water quality. This program's focus
is on habitat, in particular comparing characteristics of the
water, and the condition of the stream banks, surrounding lands,
and stream bottom today with that recorded in the baseline.
Go here to see maps with
baseline sampling sites, and survey forms. This project
was profiled in the October 2005 edition of Cacapon, which will
be published to the web shortly. |
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| Potomac Headwaters Stream Flow Restoration Project.
| We began this project in September 2003 with a grant from the
National Fish and Wildlife Foundation's Chesapeake Bay Small Watershed Grants
Program. The project will extend over two years and will assess a novel
approach to increasing stream flow during low flow periods.
Click
here to learn more.
 | 2007 VA/WV Water Research
Symposium Report is
here. |
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| Cacapon River Monitoring Program
| Monitoring of the Cacapon for its full length at twelve sites is
 conducted monthly
for major parameters, including temperature, turbidity
(muddiness), nutrients (nitrate and phosphorus) and fecal coliform
bacteria. The aim, of course, is to detect change, especially deterioration in
water quality, and determine the cause and possible solutions. The project is funded by our
membership and general support funding from The MARPAT
Foundation. |
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| Special Studies:
The Effects of Pollution Reduction on a
Wild Trout Stream.
This is a unique project that assessed the biological and water quality impacts of
installing an treatment system on a trout rearing facility's
effluent stream. We worked with Friends of Spring
Run’s Wild Trout, Cacapon Institute (CI), the WV Conservation Agency
(WVCA), WV Department of Agriculture (WVDA), WV Division of Natural
Resources (WVDNR), WV Department of Environmental Protection (WVDEP),
and the Freshwater Institute. This
project is funded primarily by West Virginia Conservation Agency’s
participation through the Chesapeake Bay Program.
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A Bit of History: Major Water
Quality programs
The Institute's work builds on the groundbreaking baseline study of the
Cacapon River begun in 1988. This baseline was acknowledged at the time as the most
detailed scientific picture of an entire river ever completed.
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Cacapon
and Greenbrier River Baseline Studies,
1989 - 1995
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Goal:
establish baseline conditions to enable enforcement of
antidegradation regulations |
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Cacapon
Baseline Benthic Macroinvertebrate Study
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Goal:
use benthic macroinvertebrates as tool to assess health of
Cacapon River. |
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Cacapon
River Monitoring Phase I, 1996-2002
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Goal:
develop long-term water quality trend data at 5 sites |
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Lost
River and North River Water Quality Studies,
1997-2002
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Goal:
relate water quality to land use, with an emphasis on
agriculture |
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Comparison
of Save Our Streams and Professional Stream Assessment Methods, 2000
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Goal:
conduct quantitative comparison of volunteer and professional
biological stream assessment methods. |
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Cacapon
Monitoring Phase II, 2002 - present
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Goal:
continue collecting trend data with additional 7 sites from LR
and NR study. |
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Revisit
Cacapon Baseline, Summer 2005
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Goal:
Revisit Cacapon baseline sites to assess habitat change |
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Periphyton
Study: proposed
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Goal:
increase specificity of relationship between periphyton and
nutrients in support of nutrient criteria development process |
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Cacapon River Baseline study
| The Institute's current scientific work builds on the groundbreaking baseline
study of the Cacapon River, begun in 1988 by the organization's founder, George
Constantz, and completed and published in
Portrait of A River: The
Ecological Baseline of the Cacapon River (now available on the web, 2.5
mb, PDF) in 1993. This
study was acknowledged as the most detailed scientific picture of an entire river
ever completed. It is now in its second edition and has been sent, by
request, to all 50 states and four countries. The baseline study
found that the Cacapon River was relatively healthy, but burdened by pollution
created by certain land uses, particularly in the Lost River headwaters
region. The Lost River,
in part because of data obtained in the baseline study, has been classified as not
meeting the state and federal standards for recreational rivers. |
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Greenbrier River Baseline study
In 1992, at the invitation of the Greenbrier River Watershed Association, the
Cacapon Institute began an intensive baseline study of the water quality and
ecological health of the Greenbrier River in southeastern West Virginia.
Four years later, the results were published in "Greenbrier: A Scientific
Portrait of a West Virginia River".
The study found that, overall, the Greenbrier River's water quality is very
good. It supports the river's legally- designated uses, which include
swimming, fishing and as a source of drinking water. However, at times,
particularly after rainstorms, the river is burdened by non point source
pollutants that wash into the river from surrounding lands.
Cacapon Baseline Benthic macroinvertebrate study
(Now available on the web.
Learning From Life on the Bottom:
Streambed creatures provide clues to the Cacapon's health. An
addendum to Portrait of a River: The Ecological Baseline of the Cacapon
River. Cacapon Volume 8 No. 2 (163 KB, PDF))
As part of the Cacapon River baseline study from 1988-1992, benthic
macroinvertebrates were collected. These are the small animals without
backbones (invertebrates) that live on the river bottom (benthos)
and are visible without magnification (macro). These animals are
often used to provide important clues to the river's health because they are
biological indicators. An indicator species is one that, by its
presence, absence or abundance relative to other organisms, indicates
environmental conditions.
This study, published in 1998, found that overall the river is relatively
healthy. Diverse benthic communities were found throughout the Cacapon
watershed. In the Lost River headwaters, however, unexpectedly high
species diversity suggests moderate nutrient enrichment. This is of
concern. If the river's nutrient load increases, numerous studies suggest
benthic communities will suffer. Just as too much fertilizer on a lawn can
kill grass, too many nutrients in a stream can overwhelm life.
Lost and North Rivers Water Quality Study
The major focus of this research project was to determine
the effect of land use practices and non-point
source pollution on rivers and watersheds. The project focused especially,
but not only, on farming practices and land development. The Lost River
(headwaters of the Cacapon) contains the major study sites because of the heavy
concentration of poultry houses, and hence the heavy application of
nutrient-rich poultry litter as fertilizer, in those two watersheds and because there is
some increase in land development in those two places. The North River (a major
tributary of the Cacapon), still a
relatively pristine stream, was used as a control watershed. Funded by
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), Potomac Headwaters Resource Alliance and
our members. Check out our new Interactive
Maps of these study areas!
South Branch of the Potomac Water
Quality Study
The
South Branch of the Potomac water quality study was complementary to the Lost and
North Rivers study. The South Branch watershed, much larger than the Lost,
contains municipal and industrial point sources and varying levels of
agricultural intensity; it was included to determine if water quality patterns
in the Lost River were typical of other Potomac Headwater streams. Funded
by USFWS and Potomac Headwaters Resource Alliance.
Comparison
of Save Our Streams and Professional Stream Assessment Methods, Year
2000
In recent years, the science of using animals to
assess the vitality of a river ecosystem has gone public. Volunteer
monitoring programs, such as the Isaak Walton League's pioneering Save
Our Streams (SOS) program, have sprouted up around the country. The SOS
and other volunteer methods are similar in general design to the methods
used by professionals, but tailored to the capabilities of
non-professionals.
Cacapon Institute (CI) received funding from the WVDNR
Non-Game Program to compare results from WV’s volunteer SOS monitoring
and the more scientifically rigorous Rapid Bioassessment Protocol (RBPII)
stream assessment methods used by WV’s Division of Environmental
Protection (WVDEP). Both methods assess stream health using benthic
macroinvertebrates, the small animals without backbones (invertebrates)
that live on the river bottom (benthos) and are visible without
magnification (macro). This project would not have been possible
without the substantial cooperation of WVDEP's Watershed Assessment Program (WAP). To
learn more, click here. |
