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Tributary data collection enhancement project

Background

The new gauging station

The Onondaga County Department of Water Environment Protection (OCDWEP) and the United States Geological Survey (USGS) have teamed up in a joint venture project to enhance data collection on Onondaga Creek. Through this partnership, both parties will gain much needed information about the Onondaga Creek watershed while maximizing the funds allocated to the project.

Description

This project includes the installation of a new flow gauging station on Onondaga Creek at U.S. Route 20 in Lafayette (by USGS), scheduled for January 2005. Sampling, in situ water quality monitoring, and meteorological data collection capabilities will be installed. The precipitation collection equipment will be outfitted with heating elements to measure snowfall precipitation water equivalents. The project has also replaced and upgraded an existing gage station located on Onondaga Creek at Spencer Street with sampling capabilities and in situ water quality monitoring.

Inside the Spencer Street station

The Spencer Street Station is operational and contains real time flow gauging, by the USGS, and a refrigerated sampler with modem/telephone line, 24 (1000-ml) bottle sample base, and has a YSI 6600 sonde unit attached to record in situ data. In situ parameters that are being logged every 15 minutes include dissolved oxygen, turbidity, temperature, pH, and specific conductivity. Also, a heated bucket rain gage is online, which will measure precipitation and will also allow the measurement of snowfall during the winter months.

The sampler is currently set to be activated by a phone command. When it is initiated it will run the following program: a 200-ml sample will be collected every 15 minutes, there will be four samples per bottle (1-hour composite sample), over a 24-hour period (one bottle representing 1 hour).

Additionally, the sampler stores five sampling programs which can be used to set the sampler to initiate sampling based on any threshold levels pertaining to the in situ parameters being monitored. Further, OCDWEP has the capability to remotely initiate a sampling program with a simple telephone call.