The Tygart Valley River Watershed 1 An Ecological Assessment of the Tygart Valley River Watershed Report number - 05020001 - 2003 prepared by: Watershed Assessment Section Watershed Branch Division of Water and Waste Management West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection 1201 Greenbrier Street, Charleston, WV 25311 www.dep.state.wv.us 2 An Ecological Assessment of Table of Contents Summary .......................................................................................................... 6 Acknowledgements ......................................................................................... 7 Watersheds and Their Assessment ................................................................ 8 General Watershed Assessment Strategy ................................................. 9 Probabilistic (Random) Sampling............................................................. 11 The Tygart Valley River Watershed ...............................................................13 Human Population and Land Use ..............................................................16 Watershed Assessment Methods .................................................................17 Biological Monitoring — Benthic Macroinvertebrates................................17 West Virginia Stream Condition Index ......................................................21 Fecal Coliform Bacteria.............................................................................23 Physicochemical Sampling .......................................................................23 Habitat Assessment ..................................................................................25 Assessment Results......................................................................................27 General Overview ......................................................................................27 Benthic Macroinvertebrates.......................................................................27 Fecal Coliform Bacteria.............................................................................34 Physicochemical Water Quality .................................................................34 Physical Habitat .........................................................................................38 Results by Sub-watershed ........................................................................40 Upper Tygart Valley River Sub-watershed............................................40 Upper Mid Tygart Valley River Sub-watershed .....................................45 Left Fork of Middle Fork River Sub-watershed ....................................52 Right Fork of Middle Fork River Sub-watershed ..................................54 The Tygart Valley River Watershed 3 Upper Buckhannon River Sub-watershed ............................................56 Lower Buckhannon River Sub-watershed - Including Pecks Run, Finks Run, and Sand Run Sites .................................................................64 Leading Creek Sub-watershed .............................................................69 Lower Mid Tygart Valley River Sub-watershed - Including Teter Creek and Laurel Creek Sites ....................................................................71 Lower Tygart Valley River sub-watershed - Including Three Fork Creek and Sandy Creek Sites ....................................................................74 Summary of Results ......................................................................................78 Additional Resources ....................................................................................82 References ....................................................................................................84 Appendix A. Data Tables ..............................................................................86 Appendix B. Glossary .................................................................................129 4 An Ecological Assessment of List of Tables Table 1. Water Quality Parameters ...............................................................24 Table 2. Scoring for Rapid Habitat Assessment ...........................................26 Table 3. Sampling Summary .........................................................................27 Table 4. Site information for Figure 9a..........................................................31 Table 5. Site information for Figure 9b .........................................................33 Table 6. Upper Tygart Valley River sub-watershed sites ...........................43 Table 7. Upper Mid Tygart Valley River sub-watershed sites .....................47 Table 8. Left Fork of Middle River sub-watershed sites ............................53 Table 9. Right Fork of Middle River sub-watershed sites .........................55 Table 10. Upper Buckhannon River sub-watershed sites .........................57 Table 11. Lower Buckhannon River Subwatershed sites including Pecks Run, Finks Run, and Sand Run watersheds ...............................................66 Table 12. Leading Creek sub-watershed sites ........................................70 Table 13. Lower Mid Tygart Valley River sub-watershed sites including Teter Creek and Laurel Creek watersheds ..................................................73 Table 14. Lower Tygart Valley sub-watershed sites including Three Fork Creek and Sandy Creek sites ............................................................77 Table 15. Sites impacted by non-acidic mine drainage ...........................79 Table 16. Sites impacted by acid mine drainage ....................................79 Table 17. Sites potentially impacted by acid rain ....................................79 Table 18. Sites potentially impacted by nutrients ...................................80 Table 19. Sites with limited habitat ......................................................80 Table 20. Sites with high fecal coliform bacteria ....................................81 Table 21. Reference site streams .........................................................81 Table 22. Other high quality sites ........................................................83 Table A-1. Sites Sampled ..............................................................................86 Table A-2. Physical characteristics of 100 meter stream reach ...................89 Table A-3. Observed sediment characteristics.........................................92 Table A-4. Substrate composition in benthic collection area.........................95 Table A-5. Macrobenthic community metrics and WVSCI scores ................98 Table A-6. Numbers of each taxon found at each sample site. ..................101 The Tygart Valley River Watershed 5 Table A-7. Water quality - parameters measured in the field and Fecal coliform bacteria ....................................................................................................118 Table A-8a. Additional water quality parameters taken from a subset of all streams sampled.....................................................................................121 Table A-8b. Additional water quality parameters taken from a subset of all streams sampled.....................................................................................123 Table A-8c. Additional water quality parameters taken from a subset of all streams sampled.....................................................................................125 Table A-9. Rapid Habitat Assessment Scores ...........................................126 List of Figures Figure 1. A Generalized Watershed .............................................................10 Figure 2. West Virginia’s Watersheds ..........................................................13 Figure 3. Ecoregions overlapping the Tygart Valley River Watershed .........14 Figure 4. Landuses of the Tygart Valley River Watershed ...........................15 Figure 5. Common macrobenthic organisms ...............................................18 Figure 6. Benthos Collection Nets ................................................................19 Figure 7. Sample Site Locations ..................................................................28 Figure 8. Average WVSCI score by 11 digit sub-watersheds .....................29 Figure 9a. Benthic health versus habitat condition. Sites from Buckhannon and Middle Fork River watersheds and surrounding area.........................30 Figure 9b. Benthic health versus habitat condition. Other Tygart Valley River Sites (not in Buckhannon River or Middle Fork watersheds) ....................32 Figure 10. Frequency of occurrence of macrobenthic taxa. Taxa with greater than 15 occurrences are shown ................................................................35 Figure 11. Fecal Coliform Bacteria ...............................................................36 Figure 12. Illustration of embeddedness .....................................................39 Figure 13. Stream with and without riparian buffer zone ...............................39 6 An Ecological Assessment of Summary Numerous streams in the Tygart Valley River watershed were assessed during August and September of 1997. Most assessments included measurements of physical attributes of each stream site and associated riparian zone, observations of activities and disturbances in the surrounding area, analyses of water chemistry, and collection of a benthic macroinvertebrate sample. One hundred and twenty-nine benthic samples were collected and scored