Lower Wise River Water Resources Investigation September 26, 2013 Big Hole River Watershed, Montana Big Hole Watershed Committee Prepared by: Jennifer Downing Big Hole Watershed Committee PO Box 21, Divide, Montana 59727 406-960-4855 [email protected] www.bhwc.org Submitted to: Montana Department of Environmental Quality Water Quality Planning Bureau Contract 211081 Acknowledgements Most of the sites used in this project were located on private property. Our appreciation is extended to the residents and groups in Wise River that generously provided access to their property and their wells during this project. Agencies working together made this project possible. They each put in countless hours to create and implement this project. Without their dedication, expertise, materials, and time this project and continue Wise River monitoring would not be possible. DEQ Water Quality Planning Bureau not only financially supported this project, but also provided expertise in developing the monitoring plan, executing the project, and compiling the results. We send our appreciation for making this project successful. Table of Contents Tables ..........................................................................................................................................................................4 Figures ........................................................................................................................................................................4 Abstract ......................................................................................................................................................................6 Acronyms ....................................................................................................................................................................7 Project Site .................................................................................................................................................................8 Technical Advisory Committee and Contributors ......................................................................................................9 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................. 10 Methods .................................................................................................................................................................. 16 1. Groundwater Methods .................................................................................................................................... 16 2. Surface Water Methods .................................................................................................................................. 17 3. Fish Methods ................................................................................................................................................... 18 Results ..................................................................................................................................................................... 20 1. Groundwater Results ....................................................................................................................................... 20 2. Surface Water Results ..................................................................................................................................... 29 3. Groundwater-Surface Water Interaction ........................................................................................................ 38 4. Fisheries Results .............................................................................................................................................. 41 Irrigation Improvement Projects on Wise River ...................................................................................................... 44 Company & Truman Ditch – 2005 ....................................................................................................................... 44 PKR Ranch – 2012 & 2013 ................................................................................................................................... 44 Discussion ................................................................................................................................................................ 48 Works Cited ............................................................................................................................................................. 51 Appendix .................................................................................................................................................................. 53 Tables Table 1: DEQ Impaired Water designations for Wise River, tributaries entering Wise River, and the Middle Big Hole River section where the Wise River flows into. Source: Montana DEQ Water Quality Clean Water Information Center. ................................................................................................................................................. 11 Table 2: Field parameters (pH, specific conductivity and water temperature) measured August 19-20, 2011. Isotope samples were collected at the same time. ................................................................................................. 26 Table 3: Lowest average daily flows of 2012 at each gage as measured by TruTracks. ......................................... 29 Table 4: Historic flow data compared to measured data. USGS NWIS Water Data for Montana Web page at http://waterdata.usgs.gov/mt/nwis/. .................................................................................................................... 30 Table 5: 2012 precipitation by month, Wise River, Montana ................................................................................. 32 Table 6: Synoptic flow (cfs) data collected by DNRC. Readings at T2 added to the (negative) ditch flows and to the (positive) Smart Creek inflow equal the readings in the column entitled, Expected T1. Measured flow at T1 is listed in the column, Actual T1. Identical T1 Expected values and T1 Actual values would indicate no gain or loss between stations. The difference between the two is listed in the final column, and since these are negative values, they are losses. ............................................................................................................................................ 33 Table 7: Water temperature summary from TruTracks. The average water temperature is the average of all measurements on all days measured. Number of days over specified degree is measured as at least one instance of that temperature within a 24 hour period. Temperatures are measured between 5/11/12 and 10/31/12 for TruTracks T1, Smart Creek and T2. T3 TruTrack is measured from 7/24/12 to 10/31/12. ..................................... 37 Table 8: Fisheries data collected from Wise River in the fall of 2011. The fish species sampled were: EB = brook trout, M Cot = mottled sculpin, RB = rainbow trout, WCT = westslope cutthroat trout, RBxWCT = rainbow trout- westslope cutthroat trout hybrids, LL = brown trout, AG = Arctic grayling, BUR = burbot, MWF = mountain whitefish, LND = longnose dace and LSU = longnose sucker (Data from Jim Olsen, MFWP) .................................. 43 Table 9: Recent irrigation improvement projects on the Wise River ...................................................................... 45 Table 10: Project monitoring locations including name, location and elevation. ................................................... 63 Table 11: Survey data collected for wells and TruTracks used in the study............................................................ 66 Table 12: Isotope Results for water samples. ......................................................................................................... 68 Table 13: Wise River well information and groundwater elevation manual measurements 2011 - 2012 ............. 69 Figures Figure 1: TruTrack water level recorder installed in Smart Creek ........................................................................... 18 Figure 2: Representative hydrographs show that groundwater elevations typically are higher in the late spring/early fall and then decrease through fall/winter. All displayed wells were located in Pleistocene glacial outwash (Qo). .......................................................................................................................................................... 22 Figure 3: Groundwater potentiometric contour map ............................................................................................. 23 Figure 4: Distribution of specific conductivity in groundwater and surface water samples collected August 2011. (Map by MBMG 2013) ............................................................................................................................................. 25 Figure 5: Groundwater and surface water are more isotopically enriched at some locations. All samples plot along the same general trend line indicating that the source for groundwater and surface water is the same. Refer to Figure 20 and Table 10 for information about points. Local Meteoric Water Line (LMWL) (Gammons, C., S. Poulson, D. Pellicori, P. Reed, A. Roesler, and E. Petrescu, 2006). ...................................................................... 27 Figure 6: 2012