Results of  the Beaver Creek Remediation Project

Results to Date:

Two years of pre-treatment and two years of post-treatment monitoring have shown that the actions taken have caused a dramatic improvement in water quality of Beaver Creek, compared with a nearby untreated, reference, or control stream.  Key conclusions include the following:

• During the pre-treatment period, about 25% of storm samples at both Beaver Creek and the reference stream had fecal coliform bacteria concentrations greater than 1,000 cfu/100ml.  That percentage was reduced to 11% in year 4 in Beaver Creek but remained similar in the reference stream.
  
  
• The median bacteria concentration in Beaver Creek decreased by 76% from pre-treatment to post-treatment periods, and the percentage of storm samples exceeding the health standard of 200 cfu/100ml decreased by 45%.
  
  
• During year 4 of the study, water exiting the treatment watershed below the farms had, on average, lower bacterial concentrations than water entering the farms from the forest in the tributary stream that has a large number of beaver ponds.
  
  
• Monitoring data for turbidity, total suspended solids, and stream temperature also suggest some reduction during the post-treatment period, but such reductions so far are small compared with observed variability.

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Last modified: April 17, 2003