Historical Water Quality Report Bitter Creek Watershed

HISTORICAL WATER QUALITY REPORT for the BITTER CREEK WATERSHED June 20, 2003 Prepared by Lost Iguana Consulting Inc. for the Sweetwater County Conservation District and the BitterlK.illpecker Watershed Advisory Group Historical Water Quality Repon Bitter I Killpecker Watersheds TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ----------------------Pg.I Historical Literature-------------------Pg. 2 Historical Water Quality Data.---------------- Pg. 4 WDEQ Water Quality Standards-s------------- Pg. 6 Historical Water Quality Data Analysis ---- ---------Pg. 8 Fecal Coliform Pg. 8 Chloride Pg. II Historical Data Relevant to Stream Classificationt----------Pg. 16 Fisheries Data - --------------------Pg. 19 Anecdotal Infonnation - ----------------- Pg. 25 Sunnnary-- -------------- ----Pg.28 Appendix Historical Water Quality Data Parameter Key (46 Pages including Index) HiStorical Water Quality Report Bitter I Killpccker Watersheds INTRODUCTION The Sweetwater County Conservation District, in order to achieve the goals and objectives of the BitterIKilipecker Watershed Advisory Group (BKWAG), desired to acquire a comprehensive historical perspective related to water quality found in the Bitter Creek Watershed, hydrologic unit code # 14040 I 05. Bitter Creek and Killpecker Creek, a tributary to Bitter Creek are the focus of this document although cursory information for other tributaries within the watershed is referenced when appropriate. The primary constituents of concern were fecal coliform and chloride concentrations. This report, prepared by Rik Gay, Lost Iguana Consulting Inc., presents the results from a historical reference literature search and an electronic database search, and anecdotal personal interviews from local citizens whom provided a first hand historical water quality based perspective of the conditions found in the Rock Springs Wyoming area. This poem below, written by David G. Thomas a Rock Springs resident around the tum of the 20 lh century, commemorated the general feeling toward Bitter Creek in the poem below. "Here's Bitter Creek; an empty thing, Save when the melting snow in spring Rolls madly down the mountainside And fills its channel deep and wide. At times it nearly overflows With dirty water, as it goes Beyond the home of Noah Walters, Where for a moment falters To proudly view Jack Noble's castle Before it starts to Ii ght and wrestle With old bottles, cans, and sundries Certain men throw in on Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays and on all days. On it goes- its filthy charges Dash against old Uncle George's House on stilts, from which it dodges Past the stable of Frank Hodges, By Woll Dickenson's humble dwelling; Chopping, grinding, booming, swelling, Curling, whirling, onward ever Till it flows into Green River, 0, Classic Creek! Rich in tradition Of tragedy and superstition; Your yearly, reckless inundation Provides the means of sanitation; Besides, the Lord knows very well When you have purged yourself of smell And other things that much displease You've freed the town of foul disease."' : David G. Thomas. Union Pacitic Mine Forman, est. 1897 HiSlorlco.\ Water Quality Report Bitler / Killpecker Watersheds HISTORICAL LITERATURE This first section will begin with information and quotes from diaries and literature from the earliest written descriptions from within the Bitter Creek watershed. The Bitter Creek area first became of interest in the mid-1800's as Indian trouble in the South Pass area promoted soldiers and emigrants to begin looking for an alternative route west. Surveyors from the transcontinental railroad were also looking for a viable route through Wyoming. Both soon found that the Bitter Creek drainage provided the most reasonable passage through the area. A bonus to the railroad was the discovery of vast coal seams within the watershed from which the trains could extract the energy needed by the nation for decades to come. Some of the observations of the Bitter Creek area from the pre-settlement period are found below. Journal entries by Surveyor Howard Stansbury, September 1850'; September 14th; "We passed the mouth of Bitter Creek ... so rapid is the disintegration of the sandstone bluff ... is almost entirely destitute of even a spear of grass." "crossing the creek, which will be somewhat difficult, as the bed of the stream is not infrequently at a depth of twenty feet ... with perpendicular banks on each side." th 0 September 15 ; "10 miles upstream of 400 34' 41",109 23' 09" (south of the point of rocks area). Bitter Creek at the camp flows in a bed twelve feet below the plain of the bottom and the water at its present stage is about sixty feet wide by six inches in depth. But the accumulation of the large piles of flood-wood shows that during spring freshets the whole valley, here about 1000' feet wide, is completely covered in water." Journal entries by Major J. Lynde, December 18573 December 3'd; "took breakfast at the mouth of Bitter Creek ... grass very scarce, it has a bitter brackish taste, wood is very scarce, nothing but greasewood and small sage. " December 4'h; "The water is not fit for man to use, being at least 118 salt." Journal entries by A. Howard Cutting, 1863' June 7'h; Black Butte Station "but the water in Bitter Creek, all we had yesterday and all we are likely to have today, is as strongly impregnated with alkali we can hardly drink it without using Sartaric Acid or Vinegar in it. Sides of the bank crusted .... water is a dirty reddish color and tastes like no one can know until they try it. Tim Connell's horse sick from alkali water." th June 8 ; Salt Wells "The well water is very salty and tastes and acts, when used for washing, just like seawater .... Bitter Creek which runs directly past the well is almost unfit for any purpose. Seems to grow worse the further we travel on it." June 9'h; "Bitter Creek is too miserable a stream to have a name. The water grows worse, so bad now, that even whiskey won't help it. ... It gives us a kind of pain in the stomach which is hard to bear. Pokers child is very sick from the effects of the water.;" , Historic Overview of the Bitter Creek Valley from Rock Springs to Green River, Gardner, Dudley & Johnson, David E. August 1988; Cultural Resource Management Report #47, Archeological Services Western Wyoming College ] ibid. 4 ibid. 2 Historical Water Quality Repln Siner I KiIlpe:l;ker Watersheds From these descriptions it is clear that in pre-settlement days the landscape in the Bitter Creek watershed was barren and the water in Bitter Creek so saline that is was not palatable and not likely useable for any purpose. No references to Killpecker Creek were found. Settlement of the area occurred in the early 1900's. Numerous descriptions were found that allowed the reader to appreciate the rapid, spontaneous way the town came together and its impact on Bitter Creek: "Perhaps the feature of the early day Rock Springs that is etched most deeply in my memory is that of Bitter Creek meandering through the center of town. It entered from the east - through East Flat, flowed past the coal chutes, turned slightly north and cut across lower K Street. It flowed on through what is now Bunning Park to join Killpecker Creek near the end of Grant Street on West Flat. A red steer bridge crossed Bitter Creek on lower K street and business houses were built to the edge of the creek banks. On the north side of the creek, on the ri ght, a group of buildings, occupied by Chinese, clung to the creek bank. As you passed across the bridge on foot you heard wastewater from the buildings splash into the creek. The creek was offensive to the eyes-for, indeed, it was an eyesore, but it was more offensive to the sense of smell- for it smelled to a degree that defied description during the dry summer and fall months. "l "Through the years Bitter Creek wiggled, wormed and squirmed its shifting way through the heart of the village, and through it' s early spring floods bore resemblance to the turbid Tiber, the early settlers, from dearth of money and materials wherewith to build, dug into its sheltering banks as a protection against wintry blasts, moving out when forced by spring and mid-summer floods. No provisions were made for sanitation, and all toilets were outside. It was not until 1924 that the city, with a population then of 8000, was to realize that it enjoyed the doubtful notoriety of being the largest city in the United States devoid of any system of sanitary sewerage. And it was not until July, 1926, that the oft-recurring overflowing of Bitter Creek's turgid waters was to fail to find homes located in its channel. Water for domestic use was hauled by Ed Clegg from the sulphur spring north of town to the storage barrels that stood before the houses and stores, for twenty-five cents a barrel. Later the railroad hauled water from Green River and Point of Rocks in tank cars and distributed it to the homes and stores at the same cost" 6. "First among these responsibilities, he (newly elected Mayor Peter Bunning) felt, was Bitter Creek. The creek, an open sewer, boiling perilously into flood in the spring, and smelling to heaven during the long dry season, chose to overflow the April after the new Mayor' s inauguration. The dugouts that lined it's banks in the pioneer days of Rock Springs had persisted, and a number of families had even ventured into the channel itself, building and filling, until every flood inundated dozens of homes. The flood of 1924 was no exception. Simultaneously with the carrying on of the rescue work and salvage, Mayor Bunning began a crusade to convert the hazardous and pestilent stream into the beginning of a modem sanitary system .

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