Segment Analysis Of Fish Creek The Location Of Sources Of Pollution

Abstract

The Orleans County Soil and Water Conservation District has monitored the waterways of Orleans County since 1997 in collaboration with the State University of New York at Brockport's Department of Environmental Science and Biology. Monitoring efforts have included the installation of a permanent gauging and sampling stations located on Johnson Creek, Sandy Creek and Oak Orchard Creek (1, 2). The District and SUNY Brockport have also completed a Stressed Stream Analyses on Johnson Creek in 2000 (3), Marsh Creek in 2001 (4) and Otter Creek in 2003 (5). SUNY Brockport has provided analytical services for water chemistry, data interpretation, as well as consulting services on the direction of the monitoring program. Fish Creek is located in the southern portion of the Lake Ontario watershed, Orleans County, New York, and flows into Oak Orchard Creek south of Route 104 and east of Bates Road in the Town of Ridgeway, New York (Fig. 1). The goal of this project was to identify the sources of nutrients, soils and salts within the Fish Creek watershed through a process called segment analysis (6). With this report, we provide evidence suggesting the location, identity of pollutants and the intensity of pollution sources in the Fish Creek watershed.