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Presentation Abstracts
Title: Indirect Effects of Onondaga Lake Pollution on Algal Abundance: Links Through Grazing Zooplankton
Authors:
Nelson G. Hairston, Jr., Colleen M. Kearns & Linda J. Perry
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853
Abstract: Ecological differences among species, even closely related species, may translate into distinct ecosystem dynamics. In lakes, the generalist grazer genus Daphnia often has marked effects on the abundance of primary producers, the rate of primary production, and rates of nutrient cycling. The effects are particularly distinct during the clear-water phase when algal biomass is driven to extremely low values as Daphnia densities undergo an annual population increase. Here we show that the timing of the clear-water phase in Onondaga Lake, NY, depends upon what Daphnia species is present in the water column. An analysis of the ephippia and diapausing eggs of Daphnia from the sediments of Onondaga Lake, New York, reveals that long-term changes in the zooplankton species assemblage tracks a history of chemical and sewage pollution. Prior to 1930, the assemblage was dominated by native D. pulicaria and D. ambigua. From 1930 - 1980, these species were replaced by D. exilis and D. curvirostris, two salt-tolerant, exotic species native to shallow salt pools of the southwestern US and coastal salt lakes of Europe, respectively. As industry was progressively shut down by government action over the period from the 1970s to the 1980s, the exotic species disappeared and the native taxa returned. We identified the exotic species either by hatching and rearing diapausing eggs (D. exilis) or by analysis of eggs using mtDNA (D. curvirostris). Their role in seasonal algal dynamics in Onondaga Lake was interpreted retrospectively using data collected in prior studies of lake environmental condition. The native Daphnia caused a typical spring clear-water phase, whereas the exotic species caused an unusual late-summer clear-water phase during the period of maximum cyanobacterial density.
Title: Robotic Monitoring Network for Onondaga Lake and the Seneca River: Supporting Rehabilitation and Public Education
Authors:
David M. O'Donnell
Innovative Engineering & Technology
Dewitt, NY 13214
Christopher J. Owen
Apprise Technologies
4802 Oneonta Street
Duluth, MN 55807
Steven W. Effler
Upstate Freshwater Institute Inc.
P.O. Box 506
Syracuse, NY 13214
Abstract: Domestic and industrial wastewaters received form urban areas have degraded the water quality of adjoining riversand lakes world-wide. These localized discharges have resulted in the most extreme cases of water pollution (3). Invaluable local fresh water resources have been lost as part of the development and activities of urban areas associated with increasing levels of discharge of waterborne pollutants. Substantial damage was done before there was full scientific understanding of the implications of the discharges, and before there were technological solutions and alternatives.
Major improvements in the ecological and water quality conditions of fresh waters have been achieved in recent years in many urban areas based on advancements in the scientific understanding of society's impacts on water quality, technologies of wastewater treatment, and implementation of these technologies (20). These efforts have been driven both by public health concerns and the desire of communities to recover resource uses of these surface waters (e.g., recreational activities) (3). Environmental monitoring through scientific measurements has played a critical role in the rehabilitation of polluted fresh waters by: (a) establishing water quality and ecological status, and the need for rehabilitation, (b) providing insights into the operation and characteristics of ecological processes, (c) supporting the development and testing of quantitative tools (models) that managers use to guide important decisions related to rehabilitation, (d) providing feedback on the efficacy of rehabilitation efforts, and (e) establishing a vehicle to engage the public in important local environmental issues.
Innovative technologies are increasingly needed to meet environmental monitoring requirements for modern complex pollution problems. These technologies must meet the demands of measuring an increasing array of chemical, physical and biological characteristics/parameters, over a variety of temporal and spatial scales. These new monitoring technologies are expected to provide early warning capabilities for managers and public health officials within reasonable personnel and fiscal resource constraints. Further, there is an emerging recognition of the importance of engaging the community in environmental protection and rehabilitation initiatives. The EMPACT (Environmental Monitoring for Public Access and Community Tracking) program of the USEPA has promoted this through grant awards to urban areas, to implement innovative monitoring of local environmental problems and deliver critical data in engaging formats in "near-real-time" to the community and environmental managers. This program reflects the philosophy that a community-based approach is best suited for decision-making concerning difficult and costly urban pollution problems. The goals of the approach are to enhance citizens' understanding of environmental issues, build the capacity for communities to address these issues, and develop monitoring tools and credible scientific information to support effective rehabilitation programs.
This paper reviews the evolution of pollution in an extremely impacted urban lake and an adjoining river in New York, and a comprehensive rehabilitation program to recover the lake. An innovative water quality monitoring technology that provides remote robotic measurement and near-real-time data delivery capabilities is described. Finally the application of this technology to meet the monitoring needs of these ecosystems and to engage the stakeholders of the community in this rehabilitation program are delineated.
Title: Estimation of Metabolic Rate through In Situ Diurnal DO Measurements: Resurrection of the Technique with Robots
Authors:
Steven W. Effler & Rakesh K. Gelda
Upstate Freshwater Institute Inc.
P.O. Box 506
Syracuse, NY 13214
David M. O'Donnell
Innovative Engineering & Technology
Dewitt, NY 13214
Abstract: Estimates of net primary production, community respiration (R'), and gross primary production (Pg) are developed and presented for the productive layers of eutrophic Onondaga Lake, NY, U.S.A., for time scales ranging from diel to several months, based on 4 months of robotic diel profiles of dissolved oxygen (DO) and temperature. Metabolic rate calculations are made through application of a DO mass balance framework that also accommodates inputs and losses of DO mediated by exchange across the air-water interface and across the lower boundary of the productive layers. It is demonstrated that the dynamics of the flux across the air-water interface are important to the metabolic rate estimates, while vertical mixing-based losses to the underlying layers can be ignored. Study average estimates of R' (1.49 gO2·m-3·d-1) and Pg (1.60 gO2·m-3·d-1) obtained by this non-isolated community approach are consistent with levels reported in the literature for similar chlorophyll a concentrations, based on isolated community (bottle experiment) protocols to measure these metabolic rates. The non-isolated community approach is shown to have limited utility for quantifying day-to-day changes in these rates in this lake, apparently because of horizontal exchange with waters of different DO concentrations. However, this approach may support reliable estimates of metabolic rates at intermediate time scales; e.g., several days to a week. The DO mass balance framework is demonstrated to be valuable in resolving the relative roles of various physical and biological processes in regulating the DO pool of the productive layers.
Title: Recent changes in the success of the zebra mussel (Dreissena polymorpha) invasion in Onondaga Lake
Authors:
Michael E. Spada, Steven W. Effler and David A. Matthews
Upstate Freshwater Institute Inc.
P.O. Box 506
Syracuse, NY 13214
Neil H. Ringler
Environmental and Forest Biology, College of Environmental
Science and Forestry, State University of New York
Syracuse, NY 13210
Abstract: The failed invasion by the zebra mussel, followed by an abrupt shift to dense populations, is documented for polluted hypereutrophic Onondaga Lake, that is located in a highly infested region of New York. The analysis is supported by: (1) monitoring of multiple life stages of the exotic invader, including veligers, pediveliger deposition, and adults, in the lake and an adjoining source river over a four year interval, (2) a quantitative substrate survey of the lake's near shore zone, (3) in situ growth rate experiments, and (4) long-term water quality monitoring data for the lake. Despite the availability of appropriate substrate and food, near optimal temperature and primary water chemistry requirements (dissolved oxygen, salinity, Ca2+, and pH), and continuing inputs of veligers since the early 1990s, veliger concentrations (< 0.2 individuals / L) and adult densities in the near shore zone (< 1 individuals/ m2) remained extremely low in the lake through 1998. Evidence is presented that this failure was due to the toxic effects on early life stages from high lake concentrations of forms of nitrogen, particularly ammonia, associated with discharges of a domestic waste water treatment plant (WWTP). An abrupt shift from extremely low to high densities occurred in the summer of 1999 and continued through 2000 (maximum of ~ 65,000 individuals/m2), coincident with an abrupt decrease in ammonia associated with increased treatment at the WWTP. Water quality monitoring data suggest that summertime total and free ammonia concentrations of ~ 2 and 0.05 mgN·L-1, respectively, were adequate to prevent the development of dense zebra mussel populations in the lake. The establishment of dense populations of this invader in Onondaga Lake may complicate the clear resolution of the impacts/benefits of an on-going rehabilitation program to remediate the lake's problems associated with domestic waste inputs.
Title: Sediment Organic Carbon Diagenesis and the Recovery of Onondaga Lake
Authors:
Martin T. Auer and Virginia K. S. Breidenbach
Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Michigan Technological University
Houghton, MI 49931
Abstract: Sediments serve as the repository for a significant fraction of the natural and anthropogenic materials received by lakes. As such, contaminated sediments are often a barrier to lake recovery, retarding the restoration of beneficial uses by mediating the exchange of chemicals across the sediment-water interface. Estimates of the time course of natural sediment cleansing are of interest to lake managers, especially in cases where direct manipulation of contaminated sediment (e.g. dredging) proves infeasible. Previously, our group has presented estimates of the response time nitrogen and phosphorus in Onondaga Lake sediments to changes in external loading and trophic state. Here, we extend those calculations to organic carbon diagenesis, the process which mediates oxygen resources in the lake's hypolimnion.
Sediment cores were collected from the lake, sliced, and analyzed for total organic carbon content. The labile carbon content (LOC) of the sediment was estimated based on C:P ratios and verified through electron transport system activity (ETSA) assays. ETS activity was elevated above baseline at sediment depths less than 10cm, suggesting that that microbial activity is largely limited to that region. TOC profiles for the first 5.5 cm, a region of apparent constant deposition, were fit to a 1-G, steady state diagenesis model. Output from that model suggests that ~40% of the sediment TOC in those strata are labile and that diagenesis is well described by a first order rate constant of 0.7 yr-1. The corresponding steady state response time for TOC in Onondaga Lake sediments is 6.5 years, a period considerably shorter than that estimated for N and P (25-30 years).
Title: Reduction in Pollutant Loading from Residual Soda Ash Waste
Authors:
David A. Matthews and Steven W. Effler
Upstate Freshwater Institute Inc.
P.O. Box 506
Syracuse, NY 13214
Abstract: The attenuation of residual industrial loads of chloride (Cl-) and total ammonia (T-NH3) form Solvay waste beds to Ninemile Creek, New York, and downstream polluted Onondaga Lake, is characterized and quantified based on fourteen years of monitoring following closure of a soda ash manufacturing facility. Concentrations of these constituents were monitored at least bi-weekly at two sites on Ninemile Creek that bound the waste bed inputs, and at the mouths of the two other major tributaries to the lake, to quantify inputs from the industrial deposits and to place these residual loads in the perspective of contributions to total lake loading. Variations in the concentrations of these constituents in Ninemile Creek downstream of the industrial inputs within individual years are well represented by a dilution model; i.e., linearity of concentration versus inverse stream flow. A relatively uniform ratio of T-NH3 to Cl- has been maintained in the residual loading, about 0.5 g T-NH3 per kg Cl-. Substantial decreases (~ 40 %) in loading of these constituents from the waste beds to Ninemile Creek over the post-closure period are documented through shifts in the dilution model. As a result, the contribution of this source to the total lake loading has decreased from ~ 50 % to < 35 %. The estimated total residual Cl- load received from the waste beds since closure of the industry (~ 1 million metric tons) corresponds to ~ 1.6 years of the full operating load of the industry before closure. The time required to reach a Cl- concentration goal for Ninemile Creek is considered, based on projections of the post-closure trend.
Title: Limnological and Loading Information and a Phosphorus Total Maximum Daily Load Analysis forOnondaga Lake
Authors:
Steven W. Effler, Susan M. O'Donnell,
David A. Matthews and Carol M. Matthews
Upstate Freshwater Institute
P.O. Box 506
Syracuse, NY 13214
David M. O'Donnell
Innovative Engineering & Technology
Dewitt, NY 13214
Martin T. Auer
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Michigan Technological University
Houghton, MI 49931
Emmet M. Owens
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Syracuse University
Syracuse, NY 13210
Abstract: The phosphorus total maximum daily load (TMDL) analysis and associated management plan for culturally eutrophic Onondaga Lake, NY, are critically evaluated based on available input/discharge and limnological information for the system. The evaluation is based on: (1) results from a long-term monitoring program conducted on the lake, its tributaries, and the adjoining river that receives the lake's outflow, (2) algal bioassay experiments of the bioavailability of particulate P (PP) in inputs to the lake, (3) loading rate calculations for forms of P in these inputs, (4) calculations of densities of inflows and the lake, (5) model analyses of plunging interflows and responses to seasonal material loading, and (6) mass balance calculations conducted around the lake outlet and river to estimate inflow to the lake from the river. The TMDL analysis is found to be flawed because several important system-specific characteristics were not accommodated, including: (1) a P load from the river back into the lake, (2) seasonal plunging of tributaries to depths below the productive layers of the lake, (3) incomplete and different bioavailabilities of PP in the various inputs, (4) the different settling velocities of PP from these sources, (5) false high estimates of TP loading from tributaries associated with turbidity interferences in P analyses, and (6) the implications of the high flushing rate of the lake for strong seasonality in the relative impacts of externals loads. The TMDL analysis isdemonstrated to understate the present role of the dominant point source and overstate the importance of non-point sources. Recommendations aremade to upgrade the TMDL analysis through an integrated program of model development, testing and application, supporting process studies and monitoring, and re-evaluation of management options.
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