Siuslaw Coho Partnership Coordinated Water Quality Monitoring Phase 1

This project expands on a concept successfully demonstrated by two members of the Siuslaw Coho Partnership (SCP, Partnership) since 2016. Since then, the Siuslaw Watershed Council (SWC) and Siuslaw Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) have partnered on continuous water quality monitoring in SWCD priority streams at 15 locations and submitted the data to the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). Data is then uploaded to the Ambient Water Quality Monitoring System (AWQMS) where it can be viewed, graphed and downloaded. AWQMS automatically migrates the temperature data to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Water Quality Exchange (WQX) in the form of daily statistics such as minimum and maximum.

We are proposing to expand the pilot project to three additional SCP organizations: Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Indians (CTCLUSI); the United States Forest Service Siuslaw National Forest (USFS); and the Bureau of Land Management Siuslaw Resource Area (BLM). Primarily continuous stream temperature data will be collected at 67 total sites with SCP partners performing the field work and SWC managing the data.

This project addresses the need for agencies to cooperate in the planning and collection of water quality data to increase efficiency, coverage, and create economies of scale. The monitoring project proposed here will standardize the SCP data into one convention already being used by the State of Oregon and make it accessible to the public in interactive maps and databases online.

Water Quality is the secondary limiting factor for OC Coho in the Siuslaw ESU population, with stream complexity being the first; while it is an underlying factor in the Coastal Lakes Watersheds, with warm water invasive species and stream complexity being the primary and secondary limiting factors. The data collected, and subsequent analysis is critical to the adaptive management of the Siuslaw Partnership’s SAPs for Coho Recovery in our watersheds. This monitoring effort is complemented by an effectiveness monitoring program which will help partners understand the effectiveness of projects with goals of creating stream complexity and is consistent with the Partnership’s monitoring plan.