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Dams provide beneficial functions such as flood control, recreation, and storage of water supplies, but they also entail risk; dam breaches and resultant floods can cause substantial property damage and loss of life. The State of Oklahoma requires each owner of a high-hazard dam, which the Federal Emergency Management Agency...

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) conducts baseline and storm response photography missions to document and understand the changes in vulnerability of the Nation's coasts to extreme storms. The remnants of Tropical Storm Ida intensified to become a nor'easter (herein referred to as Nor'Ida). On December 4, 2009, the USGS conducted...

Monthly water yields from 105,829 catchments and corresponding flows in 107,691 stream segments were estimated for water years 1951–2012 in the Great Lakes Basin in the United States. Both sets of estimates were computed by using the Analysis of Flows In Networks of CHannels (AFINCH) application within the NHDPlus geospatial...

Upriver movements were determined for Chinook salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha returning to the Yukon River, a large, virtually pristine river basin. These returns have declined dramatically since the late 1990s, and information is needed to better manage the run and facilitate conservation efforts. A total of 2,860 fish were radio tagged during 2002–2004....

The Marcellus Shale gas field underlies portions of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, Maryland, Tennessee, and West Virginia. Development of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling technology led to extensive development of gas from the Marcellus Shale beginning about 2007. The need to identify and monitor changes in water-quality conditions related...

In cooperation with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Region 3, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is participating in an ongoing study to aid in the identification of subsurface heterogeneities that may act as preferential pathways for contaminant transport in and around the Lower Darby Creek Area (LDCA) Superfund Site,...

In 2011, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Energy, collected samples for 12 new argon-argon radiometric ages from eastern Snake River Plain olivine tholeiite basalt flows in the subsurface at the Idaho National Laboratory. The core samples were collected from flows that had previously published...

The hydrogeologic framework for the Floridan aquifer system has been revised throughout its extent in Florida and parts of Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina. The updated framework generally conforms to the original framework established by the U.S. Geological Survey in the 1980s, except for adjustments made to the internal boundaries...

From 1966 to 2002, activities at the Standard Chlorine of Delaware chemical facility in New Castle County, Delaware resulted in the contamination of groundwater, soils, and wetland sediment. In 2005, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in partnership with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 3, and the Delaware Department of...

During 2005-8, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Cambridge, Massachusetts, Water Department, measured concentrations of sodium and chloride, plant nutrients, commonly used pesticides, and caffeine in base-flow and stormwater samples collected from 11 tributaries in the Cambridge drinking-water source area. These data were used to characterize current water-quality...

Groundwater recharge is one of the most difficult components of a water budget to ascertain, yet is an important boundary condition necessary for the quantification of water resources. In Minnesota, improved estimates of recharge are necessary because approximately 75 percent of drinking water and 90 percent of agricultural irrigation water...

From 2011 to 2013, the U.S. Geological Survey’s Idaho National Laboratory (INL) Project Office, in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Energy, collected depth-discrete measurements of fluid pressure and temperature in 11 boreholes located in the eastern Snake River Plain aquifer. Each borehole was instrumented with a multilevel monitoring system...

The Everglades Depth Estimation Network (EDEN) is an integrated network of water-level gages, interpolation models that generate daily water-level and water-depth data, and applications that compute derived hydrologic data across the freshwater part of the greater Everglades landscape. The U.S. Geological Survey Greater Everglades Priority Ecosystems Science provides support for...

Contaminants introduced into the subsurface of Pahute Mesa, Nevada National Security Site, by underground nuclear testing are of concern to the U.S. Department of Energy and regulators responsible for protecting human health and safety. The potential for contaminant movement away from the underground test areas at Pahute Mesa and into...

The maps and graphs in this summary describe streamflow conditions for water year 2014 (October 1, 2013, to September 30, 2014) in the context of the 85-year period from 1930 through 2014, unless otherwise noted. The illustrations are based on observed data from the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) National Streamflow...

The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, assessed hydraulic properties of geologic material, recharge, and evapotranspiration, and the effects of ditching on the groundwater resources in the Stoney Brook watershed in the Fond du Lac Reservation. Geologic, groundwater, and surface-water data...

Ecological functions and flood-related risks were assessed for floodplains along the 17 major rivers flowing into Puget Sound Basin, Washington. The assessment addresses five ecological functions, five components of flood-related risks at two spatial resolutions—fine and coarse. The fine-resolution assessment compiled spatial attributes of floodplains from existing, publicly available sources and...

This report updates and examines hydrologic data gathered to characterize the performance of two stormwater-control measure (SCM) sites in the Chagrin River watershed, Ohio. At the Sterncrest Drive site, roadside bioswales and rain gardens were used to alleviate drainage problems in this residential neighborhood area. At the Washington Street site,...

The U.S. Geological Survey collected and analyzed geophysical logs from 20 test wells and 23 residential wells at the Shenandoah Road National Superfund Site in East Fishkill, New York, from 2006 through 2010 as part of an Interagency Agreement to provide hydrogeologic technical support to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,...

The BP-3-USGS well was drilled at the southwestern corner of Great Sand Dunes National Park in the San Luis Valley, south-central Colorado, 68 feet (ft, 20.7 meters [m]) southwest of the National Park Service’s boundary-piezometer (BP) well 3. BP-3-USGS is located at latitude 37°43ʹ18.06ʺN. and longitude 105°43ʹ39.30ʺW., at an elevation...

The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, Southwestern Energy, the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission, and the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, developed regression equations for estimation of dry season mean monthly flows and harmonic mean flows that are representative of natural streamflow conditions at...

Water-quality, hydrological, and ecological data collected from June 2005 through September 2013 from the Little Blue River and smaller streams within the City of Independence, Missouri, are presented in this report. These data were collected as a part of an ongoing cooperative study between the U.S. Geological Survey and the...

In 2013, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the North Carolina Division of Water Resources, compiled updated low-flow characteristics and flow-duration statistics for selected continuous-record streamgages in North Carolina. The compilation of updated streamflow statistics provides regulators and planners with relevant hydrologic information reflective of the recent droughts, which...

In the Boulder River and Tenmile Creek watersheds in southwestern Montana, there was intensive mining during a 40-year period after the discovery of gold in the early 1860s. Potential effects from the historic mining activities include acid-mine drainage and elevated concentrations of potentially toxic trace elements from mining remnants such...

Correlating laboratory resistivity measurements with geophysical resistivity models helps constrain these models to the geology and lithology of an area. Throughout the Fort Irwin National Training Center area, 111 samples from both cored boreholes and surface outcrops were collected and processed for laboratory measurements. These samples represent various lithologic types...