An Ecological Assessment of the Lower Guyandotte River Watershed Report number - 05070102 - May 2004 Prepared by: Watershed Assessment Section Watershed Branch Division of Water and Waste Management West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection 414 Summers Street, Charleston, WV 25301 www.wvdep.org 2 An Ecological Assessment Of Table Of Contents Summary ........................................................................................................................ 5 Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................ 6 Watersheds And Their Assessment................................................................................. 7 General Watershed Assessment Strategy ................................................................... 8 Probabilistic (Random) Sampling ................................................................................ 10 Watershed Assessment Methods................................................................................... 12 Biological Monitoring — Benthic Macroinvertebrates ............................................ 12 West Virginia Stream Condition Index.................................................................... 16 Fecal Coliform Bacteria .......................................................................................... 18 Physicochemical Sampling ..................................................................................... 18 Habitat Assessment.................................................................................................. 20 Data Interpretation .................................................................................................. 21 The Lower Guyandotte River Watershed ..................................................................... 25 Assessment Results ...................................................................................................... 31 General Overview ................................................................................................... 31 Benthic Macroinvertebrates..................................................................................... 31 Fecal Coliform Bacteria .......................................................................................... 35 Physicochemical Water Quality............................................................................... 35 Physical Habitat ....................................................................................................... 35 Results And Discussions By Sub-watershed ........................................................... 36 Upper Mud River sites ....................................................................................... 36 Lower Mud River Sites ...................................................................................... 38 Middle Fork Of Mud River Sites ....................................................................... 40 Trace Fork Of Mud River Sites ......................................................................... 41 Upper Guyandotte River Direct Drains Sites ..................................................... 42 Middle Guyandotte River Direct Drains Sites .................................................... 44 Lower Guyandotte River Direct Drains Sites ..................................................... 46 Big Creek Sites................................................................................................... 47 Big Harts Creek Sites ......................................................................................... 48 Big Ugly Creek Sites .......................................................................................... 49 Fourmile Creek Sites ......................................................................................... 50 Implications ................................................................................................................. 52 References .................................................................................................................... 57 Glossary ....................................................................................................................... 60 Appendix A - Data Tables ............................................................................................ 65 The Lower Guyandotte River Watershed 3 List Of Figures Figure 1. A Generalized Watershed ............................................................................... 9 Figure 2. Common Benthic Macroinvertebrate Organisms ......................................... 13 Figure 3. Benthos Collection Nets............................................................................... 14 Figure 4. Illustration of embeddedness ....................................................................... 22 Figure 5. Stream with and without riparian buffer zone ............................................. 22 Figure 6. Example Sub-watershed .............................................................................. 23 Figure 7. Example X-Y Graph. ................................................................................... 24 Figure 8. Watershed Location...................................................................................... 25 Figure 9. Watershed Ecoregions.................................................................................. 26 Figure 10. Lower Guyandotte (excluding Mud R.) X-Y Graph .................................. 32 Figure 10-A. Mud River Sub-watershed X-Y Graph .................................................. 32 Figure 11. Upper Mud River Sub-watershed X-Y Graph............................................ 33 Figure 12. Lower Mud River Sub-watershed X-Y Graph ........................................... 33 Figure 13. Middle Fork Mud River Sub-watershed X-Y Graph ................................. 34 Figure 14. Upper Mud River Map ............................................................................... 37 Figure 15. Lower Mud River Map............................................................................... 38 Figure 16. Middle Mud River Map.............................................................................. 40 Figure 17. Trace Fork of Mud River Map ................................................................... 42 Figure 18. Upper Direct Drains Map ........................................................................... 43 Figure 19. Middle Direct Drains Map.......................................................................... 44 Figure 20. Lower Direct Drains Map........................................................................... 46 Figure 21. Big Creek Map ........................................................................................... 47 Figure 22. Big Harts Creek Map .................................................................................. 49 Figure 23. Big Ugly Creek Map ................................................................................... 50 Figure 24. Fourmile Creek Map .................................................................................. 51 Figure 25. Coal Mining Influences Map...................................................................... 53 Figure 26. Land Use Comparison Maps ..................................................................... 54 4 An Ecological Assessment Of List Of Tables Table 1. Water Quality Parameters .............................................................................. 19 Table 2. Scoring For Rapid Habitat Assessment.......................................................... 21 Table 3. WV DNR High Quality Streams .................................................................... 30 Table 4. Special Waters ............................................................................................... 30 Table 5. Sampling Summary ....................................................................................... 31 Table 6. Upper Mud River........................................................................................... 37 Table 7. Lower Mud River .......................................................................................... 39 Table 8. Middle Fork Of Mud River ........................................................................... 41 Table 9. Trace Fork Of Mud River.............................................................................. 42 Table 10. Upper Direct Drains ..................................................................................... 43 Table 11. Middle Direct Drains.................................................................................... 45 Table 12. Lower Direct Drains .................................................................................... 46 Table 13. Big Creek ..................................................................................................... 47 Table 14. Big Harts Creek............................................................................................ 49 Table 15. Big Ugly Creek............................................................................................. 50 Table 16. Fourmile Creek............................................................................................ 51 Table 17. Sites Impacted By Coal Mining ................................................................... 52 Table 18. Sites with uncertain reasons for low WVSCI scores. .................................. 55 Table 19. Sites with unimpaired benthos and the