Illinois Water 2016

I L L I N O I S

WATER

Killing the Dead Zone

6RISKS OF COAL TAR SEALCOAT IN SEDIMENT MAY FADE WITH TIME

12MICROPLASTICS MAY HELP PATHOGENS ESCAPE WASTEWATER TREATMENT

8A WORD FROM TATIANA GARCIA

2016

Illinois Water is a yearly publication highlighting research and outreach projects supported by the Illinois

Water Resources Center (IWRC). For over 50 years, IWRC has worked with

scientists, water professionals and communities to address the state’s

water resource challenges. The center is funded by the U.S. Geological

Survey (grant #INT G11AP20077) and headquartered at the University of

Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

ILLINOIS WATERAnjanette Riley

writer/editor

Gretchen Wieshuberdesigner

Marlene Waltersillustrator

Special thanks to the Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant communication team

ILLINOIS WATER RESOURCES CENTER

Brian Millerdirector

Lisa Merrifieldassistant director

Jennifer Wilsoncommunication coordinator

C. Eliana Brownoutreach specialist

Kaitlin Hollenbeckoutreach assistant

Anjanette Rileycommunication specialist

Carla Blueprogram specialist

Jenna Ziemanfiscal coordinator

@IllinoisWater

/IllinoisWaterResourcesCenter

illinoiswater.tumblr.com

Printed on 100% post-consumer

waste recycled stock.

High Levels of Discontinued Flame Retardant Found in Illinois Fish Fish in Illinois impaired urban streams have among the world’s highest concen-trations of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) in their tissue, according to a 2013 study conducted by ecotoxicologists Da Chen and Michael Lydy.

The Southern Illinois University researchers analyzed common carp and channel catfish samples from 35 aquatic ecosystems across the state for PBDEs and other flame retardants. The results showed that PBDEs—which were phased out of the production of textiles, electronics and other materials in 2004—accounted for 98 percent of the total flame retardants found in fish tissue.

The highest PBDE levels were found in fish taken from urban streams that do not meet Clean Water Act standards, including sections of the Cal-Sag Channel and the Little Calumet River. With concentrations ranging from 642 to 8,200 nano-grams per gram, fish in these streams had higher contaminant levels than many other species sampled in the United States, Belgium, Spain and China.

The study marks the first statewide survey of flame retardants in waterways. Its results could help the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency include flame retardants in their Fish Contaminant Monitoring Program.

CONTENTS

5 Woody Perennial Polyculture May Yield Economic and Ecological Benefits

6 Risks of Coal Tar Sealcoat in Sediment May Fade With Time

8 A Word From Tatiana Garcia

9 “Water Is” Photo Contest

10 Online Resources for Water and Wastewater Operators Get a New Home

10 Water Temperature Complicates Efforts to Measure Chicago’s Lake Michigan Diversion

11 New Worm Species Found Living Above Illinois Caves

12 The Private Well Class 2015 Highlights

12 Microplastics May Help Pathogens Escape Wastewater Treatment

13 Mowing Detention Basins Can Increase Risk of West Nile Virus

14 Soil Moisture Key in Tropical Storm Preparedness

Bringing watershed science to the people of Illinois

A coalition of Illinois farmers, sewage districts, municipalities, conservationists and regulators have joined forces to check the surge of nutrients flowing down the Mississippi.

Kris Reynolds took a chance when he planted his first acres of cereal rye last year. The 17-year veteran of farming has employed a variety of tactics during that time to prevent nutrients—

particularly phosphorus—from washing off his soybean field and into nearby waterways. But planting the cover crop was more of an experiment.

“I knew it would help hold soil in place and retain nutrients for the next season,” said Reynolds, who also serves as a resource conservationist for the Montgomery County Soil and Water Conservation District. “But I needed to see if I could justify spending a minimum of $20 an acre on a cover crop.”

The answer was a resounding “yes.” The rye grew in thick mats that chocked-off weeds, reducing the need for increasingly-expensive chemical herbicides.

Those same acres had some of the highest yields of the season—averaging 75 bushels an acre in soils that nor-mally produce two-thirds that.

“I’m impressed,” he added. “That’s hard to do.”

Killing the Dead ZoneReynolds’ story is far from unique. The list of growers and ranchers using conservation practices has grown steadily longer since the state began work on a compre-hensive plan to keep phosphorus and nitrogen out of the water.

Released in July 2015, the Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduc-tion Strategy was developed in response to the 2008 Gulf Hypoxia Action Plan, which calls for states in the Mississippi River basin to cut nutrient loading to rivers by 45 percent.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is looking for the results of these cuts downstream in the Gulf of Mexico, where a “dead zone” the size of Connecticut forms every summer and decimates marine life.

In Illinois, state officials, environmental groups and others hope the strategy will align more lakes, rivers and streams with the Clean Water Act’s fishable and swim-mable goal.

The science

By most estimates, Illinois is the largest contributor of nutrients to the Gulf. More than 400 million pounds of nitrate-nitrogen leave the state through the Mississippi River system each year. And another 38 million pounds of phosphorus are carried with them.

When these nutrients reach the Gulf, they jump-start algal growth, creating a massive bloom that blocks sun-light to underwater plants and sucks up oxygen when it decomposes.

ILLINOIS WATER / 2016 1

A blueprint for reduction

The Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction Strategy outlines a suite of voluntary and mandatory practices for sewage districts, municipalities and the agriculture industry.

Practices build on existing state and industry programs and align with the results of a University of Illinois-led assessment of current nutrient loads and cost-effective reduction strategies.

“This is the most comprehensive and integrated approach to nutrient loss reduction in the state’s history,” said Brian Miller, director of the Illinois Water Resources Center (IWRC), which facilitated strategy development. “But what really sets the plan apart is how it was developed. Representatives from state agencies, agriculture, non-profit organizations, universities and sanitation districts were all at the table working together to create this plan.”

The effort was spearheaded by the Illinois Environmen-tal Protection Agency (Illinois EPA) and the Illinois Department of Agriculture (IDOA).

Strategy components are being implemented statewide, but initial funding, outreach and implementation pro-grams will focus on 13 watersheds where nutrients pose the greatest risk to local water quality. These regions, which include the Big Muddy, Vermilion and upper Fox rivers, also contribute some of the highest loads to the Gulf of Mexico.

The plan in action

Requirements and recommendations for sewage districts are relatively straightforward. The largest reductions will come from the planned expansion of a permit condition that caps the amount of phosphorus treatment plants are allowed to release.

The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRD) voluntarily agreed in 2013 to

The Prairie State owes its first-place ranking to its unique mix of urban and agricultural land.

Illinois is home to nearly 13 million people and the third largest city in the nation. A population that high—and that dense—means large wastewater treatment plants and other industrial sources of nutrient pollution. Chica-go’s Stickney Water Reclamation Plant alone discharges an average of 2.3 million pounds of phosphorus a year.

At the same time, 74,300 farms and livestock operations rely on nitrogen and phosphorus—whether naturally in soil or applied as fertilizer—to maintain the state’s roughly $19 billion agricultural industry.

But those nutrients don’t always stay on the field. In northern and central Illinois, large quantities of nitrate-nitrogen are carried away through underground drainage systems. Further south, phosphorus-laden soil washes into nearby waterways with every rainstorm.

Breakdown of Illinois nutrient loads entering the Mississippi River system. Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant

Nutrient recovery at the Stickney Water Reclamation Plant will transform phosphorus and nitrogen into fertilizer. Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago

lower the concentrations of phosphorus discharged from their three largest plants. They’ve pledged to get those numbers below a monthly average of 1 milligram per liter by 2023—a shift expected to cut total annual loads by more than 3 million pounds.

“As utilities, it’s important that we take a lead on water quality issues,” said David St. Pierre, MWRD executive director. “And as the largest utility in Illinois, we felt it was critical that we accept these limits.”

To meet the new standard, the district has turned to innovative technologies for managing nutrients. In 2014, they broke ground on a new facility at the Stick-ney Water Reclamation Plant that will recover roughly 10,000 tons of a phosphorus-rich product—along with nitrogen and magnesium—each year to be recycled and sold as fertilizer.

Scientists are also conducting tests to determine if com-mercially-marketable algae can be used to knock back nitrogen and phosphorus levels at the O’Brien Water Reclamation Plant. And a process known as enhanced biological phosphorus removal, which relies on a special group of bacteria that store phosphorus in their cells, will be rolled out at the Stickney, O’Brien and Calumet plants.

For farmers, livestock owners and others working in agriculture, the plan is much broader. Members of these groups are being asked to voluntarily implement conser-vation practices like installing buffer strips along stream banks, planting cover crops and applying nitrogen fertil-izer in smaller treatments throughout the season.

These practices aren’t new. But they need to become routine to have the necessary impact on nutrient losses.

“It is going to take at least one new management practice on every acre of agricultural land to meet the reduction goals,” said Mark David, a University of Illinois biogeo-chemist and one of the researchers behind the strategy science assessment.

So IDOA, IWRC and groups like the Illinois Farm Bureau, Illinois Soybean Association, Illinois Pork Producers Association, Illinois Corn Growers Associa-tion and Illinois Fertilizer & Chemical Association got to work to raise the strategy’s profile and encourage the adoption of recommended practices.

“Illinois’ agricultural organizations and product retailers support the science assessment conducted by the Nutri-ent Loss Reduction Strategy team,” said Laura Gentry, director of water quality research for the Illinois Corn Growers Association. “We are individually and collec-tively engaging farmers with educational opportunities,

calls to action and new programming designed to address the most challenging concerns our farmers face when making decisions about conservation practices.”

The Illinois Council on Best Management Practices (CBMP), a coalition of agricultural organizations and agribusinesses supporting sustainable agriculture, took this message of support on the road last summer with 11 meetings focused on regionally-specific nutrient concerns and management practices. More than 1,000 people attended the Nutrient Loss Reduction Strategy Roadshow.

CBMP, its member groups and the state are also con-tinuing to support research on practices that keep nutrients on the field and reduce runoff into streams and rivers. The Illinois Nutrient Research & Education Council—funded by a state-mandated fee on bulk fertil-izer sales—invested more than $4 million in 2013–2014 alone.

“This is an opportunity for us to find new, more inno-vative ways to use nutrients more efficiently,” said Todd Wibben, a crop specialist at Evergreen FS Inc. in Maroa, Illinois.

Measuring success

Demonstrating reductions in phosphorus and nitrogen losses is a task for the Nutrient Monitoring Council.

Representatives from federal and state agencies, sewage districts, agriculture commodity groups, environmental organizations and universities will combine the results of individual monitoring programs to regularly estimate the

Colin Peake installs a nitrate sensor at a U.S. Geological Survey super station site. Kelly Warner, U.S. Geological Survey Illinois Water Science Center


amount of nutrients leaving priority watersheds and the state as a whole. The council is also in charge of plotting trends over time and documenting improvements in local water quality.

“It’s not enough to know that nutrient loads are down,” said Gregg Good, manager of the Illinois EPA Surface Water Section and co-chair of the council. “In priority watersheds especially, we want to know whether a decline is connected to fewer water quality standards violations and healthier fish and insect populations.”

Data for statewide estimates will come primarily from U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) super stations that measure nitrate and turbidity every 15 minutes and phos-phate every two hours.

“Most nutrient loading occurs during storm events when it is difficult to collect samples,” said Kelly Warner, a hydrologist with the USGS Illinois Water Science Center. “But these new stations will be sampling concen-trations continuously, allowing us to calculate loads that might have been missed with periodic discrete sampling. Officials and the public will also be able to see the results online within hours instead of having to wait days, weeks or months for laboratory analysis.”

The super station on the Illinois River—one of the first in the country—has been part of state and federal mon-itoring programs since 2012. A new agreement between Illinois EPA and USGS added seven additional stations to the Rock, Green, Kaskaskia, Embarras, Vermilion, Big Muddy and Little Wabash rivers.

The project is slated to end in five years, but Illinois EPA hopes to extend that date if funding is available.

USGS has also begun talks with other organizations to extend Illinois’ nutrient monitoring approach to the upper Mississippi River basin.

Setting numeric limits

Perhaps the biggest challenge issued in the Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction Strategy has little to do with the Gulf of Mexico.

To meet its obligations under the Clean Water Act, the state must establish numeric nutrient criteria—standards that say how many milligrams of phosphorus or nitrogen can be present in every liter of water. And officials are relying on the newly-formed Nutrient Science Advisory Committee to help them pin down the numbers.

Illinois EPA has searched for criteria appropriate for the state’s diverse rivers and streams for roughly 15 years. Numeric standards do exist—a 10 milligram per liter nitrate-nitrogen cap for drinking water sources and a 1 milligram per liter phosphorus discharge limit for specific wastewater treatment plants, for example. But statewide caps have yet to be set.

“To set a numeric criterion, we have to know how much of a compound can be present before it starts harming aquatic life,” said Bob Mosher, manager of the Illinois EPA Water Quality Standards Section. “We haven’t been able to find that threshold for phosphorus and nitrogen.”

Potential impacts on wildlife, Mosher added, have more to do with physical characteristics like slope and sedi-ment type than the amount of phosphorus or nitrogen flowing into the ecosystem. A numeric standard needed to reduce algal blooms in one river may be completely unnecessary in another.

Illinois EPA has asked the Nutrient Science Advisory Committee to use data collected by the agency and others to determine whether watershed-specific stan-dards are a better fit for the state. The group has roughly two years to answer this question and recommend par-ticular limits.

In the meantime, Illinois EPA plans to propose a rule to the state Pollution Control Board that would allow the agency to limit nutrient discharges when excess algal growth accompanies broad swings in dissolved oxygen concentrations.

Applying phosphorus fertilizer based on soil test results is one way Illinois farmers are helping reduce nutrient losses to streams and rivers. U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service

“This is an opportunity for us to find new, more innovative ways to use nutrients more efficiently.”

—TODD WIBBEN, CROP SPECIALIST AT EVERGREEN FS INC. IN MAROA

4 ILLINOIS WATER / 2016

Kevin Wolz wants to redefine agriculture in the Midwest.

A PhD student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Wolz is working with

fellow students and professors to design a system that would return the landscape to trees, shrubs and grasses while still preserving the region’s status as an agricultural powerhouse. And his results have already caught the eye of farmers and fellow researchers.

“Nothing is going to beat corn when it comes to yield,” said Wolz. “And nothing is better for ecosystem services like carbon sequestration and nitrogen uptake than forests. What we’re trying to do is split the difference with a hybrid system that performs sufficiently on both measures.”

The project began in 2012 on a 5-acre research field just south of the University of Illinois, the first of its kind in the country.

Half the site mimics corn and soybean fields. But that iconic scene is interrupted by thick groupings of woody perennial plants modeled after an oak savanna, the eco-system that once dominated central Illinois.

“The idea is to start with the native ecosystem and then find commodity crops that fill the same environmental niche,” said Wolz. “For example, instead of the common native understory of gooseberries, which have horrible thorns, we used currants because they excel in shade and are in high demand.”

The crucial crops in the polyculture system are chestnuts and hazelnuts. These plants have the same nutritional profiles—the breakdown of carbohydrates, proteins and

oils—as corn and soybeans, making them largely inter-changeable in an industrial food system.

“The only real difference would be that your bag of chips would say ‘made with high-fructose chestnut syrup,’” Wolz added.

The researchers have monitored water use, soil health, nutrient loss and biodiversity in the two crop systems since the first season. And, for the most part, the results match what they expected from a transition to woody perennials.

Because perennials have a longer growing season, the savanna-based system requires more water in a year than the nearby rows of corn and soybean. A larger portion of the water used by trees and shrubs, though, is taken in early spring and fall, when droughts are rare. And their deeper roots allow them to find water even when the surface of the soil is dry.

Differences in growing seasons and root structures may also explain the sharp decrease in nitrate-nitrogen losses observed in the polyculture rows. Compared to corn and soybeans, the woody perennial crops captured 5–10 times more nitrate in their second year—adding up to a roughly 80 percent reduction in nitrogen losses.

“What’s really surprising is how quickly these changes happened,” said Wolz. “We were prepared to wait a few more years for results like this. And these numbers are only going to get better as the root structures continue to grow.”

The speed and magnitude of the results made it possible for the researchers to expand their efforts to a 40-acre

Woody Perennial Polyculture May Yield Economic and Ecological Benefits

Kevin Wolz is exploring the potential of transitioning Midwestern agriculture to a savanna-based system. C. Eliana Brown, Illinois Water Resources Center

plot roughly a quarter mile down the road. Planting was completed in spring 2015.

The larger site, Wolz said, will allow them to answer more complex questions about the impacts of woody perennial polyculture on local hydrology, water quality and greenhouse emissions. And by mixing and matching the makeup of plants, the team hopes to pin down how competition for water, light and other resources influ-ences crop performance and yield.

At the same time, a case study program spearheaded by the Savanna Institute—a research and outreach non-profit founded by Wolz in 2013—is offering insight into the economic viability of the new agricultural system.

Sixteen farms throughout the Midwest planted more than 70,000 trees, shrubs and vines in the program’s first two years.

“Conservation and economics are typically seen as opposing forces,” said Wolz. “Our work is proving that truism wrong.”

Risks of Coal Tar Sealcoat in Sediment May Fade With Time

Woody perennial polyculture uses commercially-valuable crops to mimic the structure and function of natural ecosystems. C. Eliana Brown, Illinois Water Resources Center

More than a decade of research has revealed that coal tar in paving sealants may be nega-tively impacting human health and the envi-ronment. But now, environmental engineer

Charles Werth is directing a study to determine if the risks to aquatic organisms actually diminish over time.

“The answer will help officials know whether active cleanup will be needed or whether lakes can in fact ‘repair’ themselves if coal tar sealant use were discontin-ued,” he said.

Americans apply roughly 99 million gallons of coal tar sealcoat to parking lots, driveways and playgrounds each year to maintain a clean look and protect the asphalt or concrete underneath from water and ice.

“These sealcoats are worn off by driving, sun and freez-ing temperatures,” said Werth, who relocated from Illinois to the University of Texas at Austin during the study. “And the abraded particles are washed into nearby waterways when it rains.”

Coal tar sealcoat particles are rich in polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)—a large suite of compounds

Coal tar sealcoat particles from playgrounds and driveways have been found in urban streams and lakes across the country, where they build up in sediment. U.S. Geological Survey

created when wood, gasoline and other carbon-based materials are burned. Scientists have linked these chem-icals to mutations, birth defects, cancer and death in animals. Several PAHs are also considered probable


human carcinogens by the U.S. Environmental Protec-tion Agency and the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

Their threat to aquatic wildlife, though, may alter after PAHs enter the water. Depending on the chemical makeup of the sediment, Werth said, the compounds may break away from the coal tar particles and form stronger bonds with other materials.

“When this happens, the organisms living in the sed-iment are directly exposed to lower concentrations of PAHs because the chemicals aren’t being released,” he added.

Werth, University of Illinois’ Michael Plewa and gradu-ate student Victoria Boyd have seen signs of this chem-ical redistribution in Whitnall Park Pond in Wisconsin. But it will be at least another year before they can quan-tify the impact of that shift.

The project began in 2011 with a grant to the Illinois Water Resources Center from the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Institutes for Water Resources. It was one of only four selected that year nationwide.

But Werth’s work on PAHs from coal tar sealcoat started more than a decade ago with a study that traced the sources of compounds in Texas’ Lake Como and the stream that feeds into it.

That study—published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology—was among the first to show that coal tar sealcoat can be the primary source of PAHs in urban lakes. Nearly 84 percent of the PAHs found at the bottom of Lake Como came from coal tar sealcoat.

To track these compounds back to their sources, researchers used an approach often referred to as PAH fingerprinting. The exact makeup and molecular weight of PAHs in a product are unique to that material—car tires, for example, have a different arrangement of com-pounds than motor oil or coal tar sealcoat.

“You can take advantage of that individual signature to determine which materials are most likely to produce the mix of PAHs you see in the sediment,” said Werth.

The fingerprinting results were confirmed with a less common and more time-intensive detection method. Instead of working backwards from the PAHs, the researchers suspended sediment samples in resin before examining them under a microscope.

“It isn’t easy, but if you are very careful and methodical, you can actually count the different types of source parti-cles,” Werth added.

Diver retrieves sediment core samples from Whitnall Park Pond. Victoria Boyd

“These sealcoats are worn off by driving, sun and freezing temperatures, and the abraded particles are washed into nearby waterways when it rains.”

—CHARLES WERTH, ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEER,

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN


From 2012 to 2014, I had the unique oppor-tunity to take part in the National Institutes for Water Resources-U.S. Geological Survey

(NIWR-USGS) student internship program. The posi-tion allowed me to work on a highly critical and relevant project studying the dynamics of the fate and transport of Asian carp eggs using numerical simulations and labo-ratory experiments with synthetic surrogate eggs. As part of this project, I developed the FluEgg model, an assess-ment tool for the evaluation of Asian carp reproduction in spawning rivers.

Working as part of a team of project scientists was a key part of the internship. We evaluated the complex depen-dencies between flow, temperature and egg development. This information provided resource managers with a range of conditions under which rivers are vulnerable to Asian carp reproduction. Results from this multi-year internship project are useful for scientists, managers and stakeholders both to improve their understanding of the drifting behavior of Asian carp in early life stages and to aid their decision making processes.

The USGS internship was an absolutely wonderful experience. One of the most valuable and rewarding aspects of the internship was the opportunity to work hand-in-hand with USGS scientists Elizabeth Murphy and Ryan Jackson. Murphy and Jackson, along with my PhD advisor Professor Marcelo H. Garcia, provided guidance, feedback and mentorship. Interaction with USGS scientists taught me the value of concrete and applicable research. Regular meetings helped me be motivated and provided continuous feedback on my own research. One other valuable aspect is the fact that my internship work was the same as my PhD project. In this way, I was able to dedicate 100 percent of my time to a

single research project rather than a PhD dissertation plus the funded project.

Today, I am a research hydrologist with the USGS Illi-nois Water Science Center. I work on projects studying the fate and transport of the early life stages of Asian carp in the Illinois and Sandusky rivers in Illinois and Ohio, respectively. In addition, I am working on evaluat-ing the swimming speed of Asian carp larvae at different developmental stages using image processing techniques. Currently, the FluEgg model is used by other researchers to assess Asian carp reproduction in different streams.

I highly recommend students apply to the NIWR-USGS student internship program. My internship was valuable because not only did I work on solving a critical problem like the invasion of Asian carp, but I also had the opportunity to work with experienced scientists who eventually became my mentors. However, arguably the most valuable outcome of my internship was full-time employment with USGS.

A WORD FROM

Tatiana Garciaresearch hydrologist at the U.S. Geological Survey Illinois Water Science Center

My internship was valuable because not only did I

work on solving a critical problem like the invasion

of Asian carp, but I also had the opportunity to work

with experienced scientists who eventually became

my mentors.


Paul Gierhart | winner, adult professional division

“Water Is” Photo Contest

The Illinois Water Resources Center (IWRC) is pleased to announce the winners of the “Water Is” photo contest.

We received a wide variety of stunning photographs from all over Illinois showcasing what water means to our communities. Winners were selected by an expert panel of judges from IWRC, Illi-nois-Indiana Sea Grant, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, the Illinois Department of Agriculture, the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago and the Illinois Council on Best Management Practices.

Thank you to all our entrants, and congratulations to the winners!

John R. Hamilton | winner, adult amateur division

Oliver Burrus | winner, youth 13 and under division

Madeleine Bevan | winner, youth 14 and older division


SmallWaterSupply.org is no more— it’s now simply WaterOperator.org.

“The rebranding reflects that operators of small systems are and will continue to be our target

audience,” said Steve Wilson, a groundwater hydrolo-gist at the Illinois State Water Survey and the project manager.

Originally launched in 2010, the web portal provides water and wastewater operators with easy access to the tools and resources needed to serve small communities. WaterOperator.org extends this mission by incorporat-ing mobile-friendly features.

Visitors to the site will find a searchable database with thousands of manuals, fact sheets, presentations and other industry resources from nearly 800 state, tribal and federal agencies along with industry groups and uni-versities. Materials cover a range of topics—from asset management to monitoring to water reuse—and are free to download.

Water and wastewater operators can also learn about upcoming trainings, workshops, webinars and more on

Online Resources for Water and Wastewater Operators Get a New Home

the events calendar. All events are searchable by keyword and include links to the original source.

The WaterOperator.org blog keeps visitors up-to-date on the latest industry news. Operators can also sign up to receive regular email newsletters, including one tailored to the unique needs of tribal communities. Another newsletter focuses on the results of the Drinking Water Centers project. Led by research groups at the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Massachu-setts Amherst, the project aims to help small and rural communities adopt innovative treatment technologies.

WaterOperator.org is managed by the Illinois Water Resources Center, Illinois State Water Survey and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Funding comes from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Rural Community Assistance Partnership and the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium.

Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant

Water Temperature Complicates Efforts to Measure Chicago’s Lake Michigan Diversion

A computer modeling project led by University of Illinois’ Marcelo Garcia has largely confirmed the accuracy of methods used to monitor the flow of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.

The finding may appear uneventful, but the history of the canal makes an accurate accounting of the amount of water moving through it uniquely important.

The canal was opened in 1900 to reverse the flow of the Chicago River—a change that shielded Lake Michigan, the city’s primary source of drinking water, from contamination and helped dilute sewage and runoff pollution. Roughly 30 years later, the U.S. Supreme Court imposed a limit on how much water could be diverted through the canal to ensure lake levels stayed high enough to meet the needs of other communities.

The cap is maintained today by a series of locks and dams, and the canal’s flow is closely monitored by federal and regional agencies. The Chicago River system is closely monitored to ensure its flow

stays below federal limits. River City Pilings / Terence Faircloth / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0


New Worm Species Found Living Above Illinois Caves A

new species of aquatic worm discovered in southwest Illinois can be seen with the naked eye—but only just.

Scott Cinel, a graduate student at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the Illinois

Natural History Survey’s Steven Taylor dis-covered the worm in 2015 while inspecting

the first-ever samples of the state’s epikarst zone—a thick layer of rock that supplies

water to underground rivers winding through Illinois’ nearly 300 caves.

A little more than a dozen types of crustaceans, amphipods and worms were found using screened col-lectors placed in Monroe County caves. Most belong to species groups known to live in epikarst zones.

Cinel and Taylor have partnered with a taxonomic expert to doc-ument the characteristics of the newly-discovered worm species. A full description and name will be revealed in an upcoming journal

publication.

Garcia and his team conducted their study in partnership with one such group: the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Illinois Water Science Center.

Measuring the volume of water moving through a system directly is difficult, so USGS uses an empirical method known as a rating curve to quantify the canal’s flow based on regular velocity readings taken near Lemont, Illinois.

“To create these curves, they need data collected by gauges deployed from boats, which they can only get when the water level is low,” said Som Dutta, a PhD student who worked with Garcia. “There was a concern that the rating curve wasn’t accu-rate during storms that raise the water level and change the flow mechanics of the canal.”

A miscalibrated curve could mean more water is being pulled from the lake than federal mandates allow.

So Garcia and Dutta developed a 3D numerical model of the canal from where it meets the Cal-Sag Channel to the Lock-port Powerhouse downstream. This allowed them to simulate rainstorms of varying intensities and monitor their impact on the canal’s flow.

“The results dispelled any doubt that the USGS rating curve doesn’t work during storms,” Dutta said.

The model did, however, reveal a scenario that could render USGS measurements inaccurate at times.

When the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal meets the Cal-Sag Channel, the mechanics of the canal are temporarily disrupted—like traffic during a highway merge.

The disruption typically has little impact on measurements taken at Lemont. But if the water in the Cal-Sag is colder than in the canal, the mixing caused by the cooler, denser water plung-ing to the bottom could lead USGS to conclude that more water is moving through the canal than actually is.

“It would affect the velocity of the water but not necessarily the flow,” said Garcia, whose group was the first to model density currents in the Chicago River roughly 15 years ago. “More research is needed to understand what is going on in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.”


More than 650

people signed up for the 10-week email

course.

6 webinars were

hosted in English or Spanish.

98 percent of

sampled participants said they would recommend the class to others.

The new Private

Well Podcast is free for download on

iTunes.

A new mobile-

friendly website puts well care practices

at owners' fingertips.

The Private Well Class 2015 Highlights

Over 15 million U.S. households rely on private wells for drinking water, and the responsibility for safeguarding water quality falls on the well owner. Proper construction and continued maintenance are key to protecting well water from arsenic, copper, E. coli, Salmonella and other common contaminants. But knowing when and how to follow these prac-tices can be overwhelming.

The Private Well Class provides groundwater science education and technical assistance for owners, realtors and others interested in well care best practices. The web-based curriculum includes how-to information on everything from conducting and interpreting water sample results to protecting source water from contamination.

The Private Well Class is led by the Illinois Water Resources Center and the Illinois State Water Survey. Funding is provided by a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Additional partners include the Rural Community Assistance Partnership and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Visit privatewellclass.org for more information.

Microplastics May Help Pathogens Escape Wastewater Treatment Scientists at Loyola University Chicago say that tiny pieces of plastic in Illinois streams are home to a unique collection of aquatic microbes, including some that pose a threat to wildlife and human health.

When Tim Hoellein and Amanda McCormick examined micro-plastics collected downstream of wastewater treatment plants, they found unusually high numbers of a bacteria family associ-ated with gastrointestinal infections. The plastics were lined with roughly 13 times more Campylobacteraceae than the organic materials sampled at the same locations.

The pathogen likely survived treatment by binding to plastic pieces too minute to be removed at the plants.

“Those pieces may be eaten by fish or encountered by people in the water,” said Hoellein, an aquatic ecologist. “The microplastics could essentially become a delivery system for the disease-car-rying bacteria that we didn’t know existed.”

Gene sequencing also revealed that microscopic debris skimmed from the 10 sampled rivers had been colonized by bacteria known for their ability to breakdown plastic and oil.

The study was conducted alongside efforts to quantify and track litter in five Chicago-area streams. For that project, Hoellein and McCormick adapted methods used to catalog beach debris and trace insect movements.

Plastic bags, bottles and wrappers made up the largest propor-tion of the discovered debris, with metal, glass and Styrofoam also in high abundance. And while more litter was found near the banks, debris taken from the stream floors weighed in at roughly double the mass.

Altogether, the researchers estimate that 21–78 metric tons of human debris can be found in the study area at any time. But the exact makeup of the pollution is in flux.

“The level of mobility was really surprising,” said Hoellein. “Once we started tagging and tracking the debris, we found that indi-vidual pieces of litter were regularly moving downstream. The amount stayed the same, but everything moved around.”

Continuous movement, he added, may help the plastics break down more quickly.

“Plastic decomposes very slowly, but sunlight exposure and abrasions could speed up the process.”


Mowing Detention Basins Can Increase Risk of West Nile Virus

When Andrew Mackay, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, set out to inves-tigate the link between West Nile virus

and stormwater retention basins, he didn’t count on land managers mowing test sites. It could have marked the end of sampling at those locations, but Mackay decided to put mosquito traps out anyway.

The decision led to the project’s most significant finding.

“We saw a large increase in the number of Culex pipiens and Culex restuans mosquitoes where aquatic plants had recently been mowed,” said Brian Allan, faculty in the Department of Entomology and co-author of a paper detailing the results of the study in the journal Ecological Applications.

A large spike in C. pipiens—the primary vector for West Nile in the United States—occurred in basins overrun with Phragmites and cattails. Researchers saw a 10-fold increase in Culex larvae after these invasive plants were cut down.

The population boom was likely driven by the large amount of plant debris added to the water when vegeta-tion is mowed down. Bacteria that colonize waterborne debris are a rich food source for mosquito larvae, making mowed basins ideal locations for mosquito nurseries.

Trimming Phragmites also displaced a variety of bird species that roost in the tall grass. The researchers expected this dispersal would lessen public exposure to West Nile virus.

“Instead, we found the exact opposite,” said Allan. “Birds are natural pathogen reservoirs, but the particular species roosting in the basins turned out to be relatively poor reservoirs for West Nile.”

“As long as these birds were nearby, there was less need for the mosquitoes to venture out for a meal and poten-tially feed on more ‘competent’ hosts,” he added.

Land owners and managers can reduce the public health risks of West Nile by mowing stormwater retention basins in early spring or late fall, when virus transmission through mosquitos is lowest. Julie McMahon, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign


Bringing watershed science to the people of Illinois

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Forecasters and community leaders should look to the soil when deciding how to respond to the remnants of tropical storms moving through Illinois. Wetter soils will mean higher flood risks when the rains begin.

The connection likely comes as no surprise to those who work with weather and stream flow data—when soils reach their water-retention capacity, stormwater has little where else to go than into nearby waterways.

But understanding the strength of this connection, says mete-orologist David Changnon, could help communities prepare for the often severe impacts of tropical storms.

Changnon, along with Northern Illinois University PhD student Alex Haberlie, compared precipitation data from 26 tropical storms with stream flow monitoring results in nine watersheds throughout the state.

They discovered that tropical systems temporarily increased the volume of water moving through streams by an average of 866 percent, with larger surges occurring in wet years. And the relatively large size of the storms meant that different regions experienced similar water level rises together.

“Tropical storms move slowly, and we are able to predict the amount of rainfall they will bring with higher accuracy than more localized systems,” said Changnon. “Forecasters can take advan-tage of this lead time to determine whether the storm is likely to trigger a flood.”

Soil Moisture Key in Tropical Storm Preparedness

The slow-moving nature of tropical storms gives Illinois communi-ties time to prepare for potential flooding. Flooding / Clark Maxwell / CC

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