Aquatic Communities and Contaminants in Fish from Streams of the Red River of the North Basin, Minnesota and North Dakota By R.M. Goldstein________________________________ U.S. Geological Survey Water-Resources Investigations Report 95-4047 Contribution from the National Water Quality Assessment Program Mounds View, Minnesota 1995 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR BRUCE BABBITT, Secretary U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY Gordon P. Eaton, Director For additional information write to: Copies of this report can be purchased from: U.S. Geological Survey Earth Science Information Center District Chief Open-File Reports Section U.S. Geological Survey Box 25286, MS 517 2280 Woodale Drive Denver Federal Center Mounds View, MN 55112 Denver, CO 80225 Information regarding the National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Program is available on the Internet via the World Wide Web. You may connect to the NAWQA Home Page using the Universal Resource Locator (URL) at: <URL:http://wwwrvares.er.usgs.gov/nawqa/nawqa_home.html> FOREWORD Describe current water-quality conditions for a large part of the Nation's freshwater streams, rivers, and aquifers. Describe how water quality is changing over The mission of the U.S. Geological Survey time. (USGS) is to assess the quantity and quality of the Improve understanding of the primary natural earth resources of the Nation and to provide and human factors that affect water-quality information that will assist resource managers and conditions. policymakers at Federal, State, and local levels in This information will help support the making sound decisions. Assessment of water- development and evaluation of management, quality conditions and trends is an important part regulatory, and monitoring decisions by other of this overall mission. Federal, State, and local agencies to protect, use, and enhance water resources. One of the greatest challenges faced by water- resources scientists is acquiring reliable The goals of the NAWQA Program are being information that will guide the use and protection achieved through investigations of 60 of the of the Nation's water resources. That challenge is Nation's most important river basins and aquifer being addressed by Federal, State, interstate, and systems, which are referred to as study units. These local water-resource agencies and by many study units are distributed throughout the Nation academic institutions. These organizations are and cover a diversity of hydrogeologic settings. collecting water-quality data for a host of purposes More than two-thirds of the Nation's freshwater that include: compliance with permits and water- use occurs within the 60 study units and more than supply standards; development of remediation two-thirds of the people served by public water- plans for a specific contamination problem; supply systems live within their boundaries. operational decisions on industrial, wastewater, or National synthesis of data analysis, based on water-supply facilities; and research on factors that aggregation of comparable information obtained affect water quality. An additional need for water- from the study units, is a major component of the quality information is to provide a basis on which program. This effort focuses on selected water- regional and national-level policy decisions can be quality topics using nationally consistent based. Wise decisions must be based on sound information. Comparative studies will explain information. As a society we need to know whether differences and similarities in observed water- certain types of water-quality problems are isolated quality conditions among study areas and will or ubiquitous, whether there are significant identify changes and trends and their causes. The differences in conditions among regions, whether first topics addressed by the national synthesis are the conditions are changing over time, and why pesticides, nutrients, volatile organic compounds, these conditions change from place to place and and aquatic biology. Discussions on these and other over time. The information can be used to help water-quality topics will be published in periodic determine the efficacy of existing water-quality summaries of the quality of the Nation's ground policies and to help analysts determine the need and surface water as the information becomes for, and likely consequences, of new policies. available. This report is an element of the comprehensive To address these needs, the Congress body of information developed as part of the appropriated funds in 1986 for the USGS to begin a NAWQA Program. The program depends heavily pilot program in seven project areas to develop and on the advice, cooperation, and information from refine the National Water-Quality Assessment many Federal, State, interstate, Tribal, and local (NAWQA) Program. In 1991, the USGS began full agencies and the public. The assistance and implementation of the program. The NAWQA suggestions of all are greatly appreciated. Program builds upon an existing base of water- quality studies of the USGS, as well as those of other Federal, State, and local agencies. The Robert M. Hirsch objectives of the NAWQA Program are to: Chief Hydrologist IV Contents Abstract.................................................................................................................................................................. 1 Introduction............................................................................................................................................................ 1 Purpose and scope............................................................................................................................................ 3 Previous studies................................................................................................................................................ 3 General glacial history ..................................................................................................................................... 4 Hydraulic alterations........................................................................................................................................ 4 Ecological regions............................................................................................................................................ 7 Acknowledgments............................................................................................................................................ 11 Aquatic communities............................................................................................................................................. 11 Macroinvertebrates and algae........................................................................................................................... 11 Insects...................................................................................................................................................... 11 Mollusks.................................................................................................................................................. 12 Algae.......................................................^ 12 Fish communities and distributions.................................................................................................................. 13 Zoogeography.......................................................................................................................................... 13 Recent introductions offish..................................................................................................................... 14 Fisheries................................................................................................................................................... 15 Endangered species.................................................................................................................................. 15 Fish communities..................................................................................................................................... 15 Contaminants in fish.............................................................................................................................................. 27 Trace elements.................................................................................................................................................. 27 Organochlorine compounds............................................................................................................................. 29 Summary................................................................................................................................................................ 29 References..........................................................................................................._^ 30 Illustrations Figure 1-5. Maps showing: 1. Major rivers in the Red River of the North Basin...................................................................... 2 2. Portions of the United States and Canada covered by glacial Lake Agassiz............................. 5 3. Locations of dams and reservoirs in the Red River of the North Basin..................................... 6 4. Areas of wetlands and drainage ditches in the Red River of the North Basin........................... 8 5. Ecoregions of the Red River of the North Basin........................................................................ 10 6-8. Graphs showing: 6. Species richness of rivers that flow through one,