Determination of Upstream Boundary Points on Northeastern Washington Streams and Rivers Under the Requirements of the Shoreline Management Act of 1971
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U.S. Department of the Interior U.S. Geological Survey Determination of Upstream Boundary Points on Northeastern Washington Streams and Rivers Under The Requirements of The Shoreline Management Act of 1971 Water-Resources Investigations Report 98-4160 X '. MASO ', GRAYS HARBOR I _ |l \_ *r .-"^ '^ ?l _ _ . _ _JTHURSTON * 'rV ' ! ! / PACIFIC' LEWIS 'J3ARF!ELD^ ,^ f -L^. _. WAHKIAKUM 'COLUMBIA i r - "* ~ -"^ I SKAMANIA BENTON ^ ", -- ' "- COWLITZ ' WALLA WALLA . fAS"ASOTIN * ;___ -- -L - _ L i_ - ^, / KLICKiTAT ": CLARK ! ' T S ' ^ ~" Prepared in cooperation with Washington State Department of Ecology science for a changing world Determination of Upstream Boundary Points on Northeastern Washington Streams and Rivers Under the Requirements of the Shoreline Management Act of 1971 By David L. Kresch U.S. Geological Survey Water-Resources Investigations Report 98-4160 Prepared in cooperation with WASHINGTON STATE DEPARTMENT OF ECOLOGY Tacoma, Washington 1998 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR BRUCE BABBITT, Secretary U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY Thomas J. Casadevall Acting Director Any use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. For additional information write to: Copies of this report may be purchased from: District Chief U.S. Geological Survey U.S. Geological Survey Branch of Information Services 1201 Pacific Avenue - Suite 600 Box 25286, MS 517 Tacoma, Washington 98402 Denver, Colorado 80225-0286 CONTENTS Abstract 1 Introduction 1 Previous investigations 3 Purpose and scope 3 Approach 3 Development of the regional regression equation 4 Determination of upstream boundary points 5 Summary 7 References cited 7 FIGURES 1. Map showing study area location in northeastern Washington State 2 TABLES 1. Gaging-station records used in the development of the regression equation for determining mean annual discharge of northeastern Washington streams and rivers 8 2-7. Upstream shoreline boundary points, as defined in the Shoreline Management Act of 1971, that are located on streams in 2. Chelan County, Washington 10 3. Ferry County, Washington 13 4. Okanogan County, Washington 14 5. Pend Oreille County, Washington 16 6. Spokane County, Washington 17 7. Stevens County, Washington 18 8. Upstream shoreline boundary points, as defined in the Shoreline Management Act of 1971, that are located on rivers of statewide significance in northeastern Washington 19 CONVERSION FACTORS Multiply By To obtain inch (in.) 25.4 centimeter foot (ft) 0.3048 meter mile (mi) 1.609 kilometer square mile (mi2) 2.590 square kilometer cubic foot per second (ft3/s) 0.02832 cubic meter per second Sea Level: In this report "sea level" refers to the National Geodetic Vertical Datum of 1929 (NGVD of 1929) a geodetic datum derived from a general adjustment of the first-order level nets of both the United States and Canada, formerly called Sea Level Datum of 1929. in Determination of Upstream Boundary Points on Northeastern Washington Streams and Rivers Under the Requirements of the Shoreline Management Act of 1971 By David L. Kresch ABSTRACT INTRODUCTION Certain regulations affecting the shorelines of the The Washington State legislature, in 1971, identified State of Washington, as mandated by the Shoreline the shorelines of the State as "among the most valuable Management Act of 1971, are applicable to streams and and fragile of its natural resources" and expressed great rivers downstream from the points where the mean annual concern regarding their utilization, protection, restoration, discharge or the size of the drainage basin equals specified and preservation. Therefore, the legislature enacted the amounts. The U.S. Geological Survey originally con Shoreline Management Act of 1971 (hereafter referred to ducted a study in 1971 to determine these upstream either as the Shoreline Management Act or as the Act) and boundary points for many of the State's streams. In this designated the Washington State Department of Ecology current study, boundary points were determined for 168 (Ecology) as the agency responsible for regulating the streams and rivers in northeastern Washington that come State's shorelines (State of Washington, 1971). The under the jurisdiction of the Shoreline Management Act of stream and river reaches under the jurisdiction of the 1971. This includes 146 streams where the mean annual Shoreline Management Act are those where specified reg discharge exceeds 20 cubic feet per second and 22 rivers ulatory discharges or drainage basin sizes are exceeded. of statewide significance where either the mean annual Thus, Ecology needs to know the locations on streams and discharge exceeds 200 cubic feet per second or the drain rivers where the regulatory criteria are reached (upstream age area exceeds 300 square miles. boundary points) to properly carry out the provisions of the Act. Boundary point locations were determined using a log-linear regression equation that relates mean annual discharge to drainage area and mean annual precipitation. The Act designates separate regulatory criteria for The regression equation is based on data from 33 gaging streams and rivers. For northeastern Washington, the stations with at least 10 years of record. The coefficient of study area of this report (fig. 1), the Act defines "shore determination, R2, of the regression equation is 0.984, and lines" as stream reaches where the mean annual discharge the standard error of estimate of the equation is ± 0.0916 exceeds 20 cubic feet per second (ft /s) and "shorelines of log units. The latter corresponds to an error of -3.8 to statewide significance" as river reaches where either the +4.7 cubic feet per second for a mean annual discharge of mean annual discharge exceeds 200 ft3/s or the drainage 20 cubic feet per second and an error of -38 to +47 cubic area exceeds 300 square miles. The location of the feet per second for a mean annual discharge of 200 cubic upstream boundary for a stream or river is defined as the feet per second. point where one of these criteria is met. 124° 118° 49° \ JEFFERSON I Is) \GRAYS ! MAS° I HARBOR L_ . ^_ "^ T i s ~> ^ -- _ PACIFIC ^---L WAHKiAKU COLUMBIA 1 \ i COWL1TZ BENTON \ WALLA WALLA ' ASOTIN\ 46° J_ /L<f^, .___ J KLICKITAT CLARK X 50 100 MILES 50 100 KILOMETERS Figure 1 . Study area location in northeastern Washington State. Previous Investigations southeast corner of Chelan County follows the drainage divide between the Yakima and Wenatchee River Basins The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation rather than the county boundary. with Ecology, conducted a study in 1971 to determine the upstream boundary points on many streams throughout the State for which Ecology had regulatory responsibility APPROACH (David H. Appel, U.S. Geological Survey, written com- mun., 1971). However, in 1990, Ecology decided that the Most of the streams and rivers of interest in tMs study boundary points determined in the 1971 study needed to are not gaged. Thus, a direct-measurement approach for be updated for the following reasons. determining upstream boundary points could not feasibly be used because (1) the use of stream-gaging records to 1. The 1971 study did not include all streams that met determine mean annual discharges would require continu the regulatory criteria. ous operation of a number of new gages on each stream over a period of years, (2) the locations at which to gage 2. The 1971 study did not determine upstream boundary the streams would not be known beforehand, and (3) the points for shorelines of statewide significance. cost of operating the large number of gages requi-ed would be economically impractical. 3. In the 1971 study, if the regulatory discharge occurred upstream of certain political or jurisdictional The most practical way to determine streamf ow at boundaries, such as those for national forests, Indian ungaged sites is by transfer of information develcoed for reservations, and national parks, the Shoreline gaged sites. A widely accepted approach uses multiple- Management Act upstream boundary point was log-linear-regression equations that relate streamflow to placed at the political or jurisdictional boundary. physical and climatic characteristics. The previous USGS study (David H. Appel, U.S. Geological Survey, written 4. The 1971 study determined upstream boundary points commun., 1971) concluded that only drainage area and for the regulatory discharge of 20 ft /s plus the mean annual precipitation were needed in order to deter standard error of the determining regression equations mine mean annual discharge at ungaged sites. The form of rather than for just the regulatory discharge itself. the regression equations developed for that study was 5. Over two additional decades of streamflow data 2 = V (1) collected since 1971 could provide improved estimates of long-term mean annual discharges. where Q is mean annual discharge, A is basin drainage From 1990 through 1995, the USGS, in cooperation area, P is mean annual precipitation averaged over the with Ecology, determined updated upstream boundary basin, and a, b , and c are constants. The basin area (A ) points for all western Washington streams and rivers for and precipitation (P ) are those for the drainage b^sin which Ecology has regulatory responsibility. Those upstream of the point on the stream or river at which mean updated boundary point locations were published in USGS annual discharge ( Q) is desired. The use of only drainage Water-Resources Investigations Report 96-4208 (Kresch, area and mean