Floyds Fork Watershed Biological Assessments Update
Floyds Fork TMDL Public Meeting, February 19, 2013
Kentucky Division of WaterDepartment for Environmental Protection
To Protect and Enhance Kentucky’s Environment
Objectives• Assess the current biological health of selected
streams in the watershed• Identify likely causes of biological impairments
Macro-invertebrates
Fish
Algae
2012 Sampling Sites
• Floyds Fork mainstem - 4 sites• North and South Forks Currys
Fork and un-named tributary of South Currys Fork
• Ashers Run• “Upper” Chenoweth Run• Pope Lick – 2 Sites• South Long Run• Long Run• Pennsylvania Run• Cedar Creek• Cane Run• Brooks Run
2012 Site Visit Activities
• General field observations• Biological sampling– Bugs, Fish, Algae
• Habitat Assessment– Assessment of the quality of the habitat available to
aquatic organisms
• Visual algae surveys– Survey of the types and the thickness of algae
growing in the stream
• Chlorophyll-a sampling– Measurement of the amount of algae in the water column
Aquatic Life Use Assessment• “KIBI” – Kentucky Index of Biotic Integrity (fish)• “MBI” – Macroinvertebrate Bioassessment Index
– pollution tolerant vs. pollution sensitive species– species diversity– species that require adequate habitat of certain types
• Score results fall in a range from Excellent or Good (= Fully Supporting aquatic life use to
Fair, Poor or Very Poor (= not Fully Supporting)
• dominated by a few pollution tolerant species
• diversity is low and sensitive species are rare
• persistently high levels of algae• low oxygen or widely changing
oxygen• nutrients high compared to most
streams that fully support aquatic life use
Indicators of Nutrients and Organic Enrichment
Cane RunFishEXCELLENTMacroinvertebratesGOOD
Floyds Fork lower sectionsFishGOOD to EXCELLENTMacroinvertebratesEXCELLENT
North Fork Currys ForkMacroinvertebratesFAIR
Brooks RunMacroinvertebratesFAIR
Green = Full Support Red = Impaired, causes
include Nutrients and/or Organic Enrichment
Black = Impaired, other causes
Purple = Undetermined impairment or causes
2012 Biological Sampling Results
Penn
sylv
ania
Run
Green = Full Support Red = Impaired, causes
include Nutrients and/or Organic Enrichment
Black = Impaired, other causes
Purple = Undetermined impairment or causes
Candidate Impairments Feb 2013
2013-4 Activities• Additional sampling to resolve “Undetermined”
impairments• Biological sampling in remaining streams previously
listed for nutrient/organic enrichment impairments