Citation:

Yeardley, R., B. Duffy, K. Kimbrough, J. Lazorchak, M. Mills, AND E. Johnson. A Comparison of Two Macroinvertebrate Multi-Plate Sampling Methods to Inform Great Lakes Monitoring and Remediation Efforts. Journal of Environmental Protection. Scientific Research Publishing, Inc., Irvine, CA, 14(12):933-953, (2023). https://doi.org/10.4236/jep.2023.1412052

Impact/Purpose:

The Great Lakes Areas of Concern (AOC) program, as part of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (GLWQA), is committed to restoring the physical, chemical, and biological integrity of the Great Lakes. AOCs are populous areas where beneficial use impairments (BUIs) affect the health and quality of life of millions of people, and the AOC program is implementing remediation and restoration efforts to remove those BUIs and improve lives in those communities. Accurate monitoring and assessment of contaminated sites are critical to this process by providing useful data to stakeholders, providing baseline data, establishing remedial prioritization, and afterwards in determining the effectiveness of remedial efforts. Data from monitoring are used in a multi-metric, weight-of-evidence approach to provide baseline information on the extent that beneficial uses are impaired in order to measure future cleanup progress. This methods study at the Niagara River AOC is part of a long-term commitment of the U.S. EPA, working with its partners in NOAA, state agencies (NYSCEC), and other partners to develop and provide information to states and EPA regions on effective monitoring techniques in oder to help make efforts of the AOC program successful.

Description:

Hester-Dendy (HD) multi-plate samplers have been widely used by state and federal government agencies for bioassessment of water quality through use of macroinvertebrate community data. To help guide remediation and restoration efforts at the Niagara River Great Lakes Area of Concern site, a multi-agency study was conducted in 2014 to assess the contribution of seven major urban tributaries on the US side of the river toward the impairment of the Niagara River. As part of this study, macroinvertebrate communities were sampled using two co-located versions of HD samplers: one version used by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) and another by the US Environmental Protection Agency Office of Research and Development. Samplers were deployed in tributaries in highly developed watersheds with high percent impervious surface. The two sampling methods varied in terms of number and size of plates, between-plate spacing, and deployment method. Comparison of the similarity/grouping of communities with multivariate ordination techniques, Nonmetric Multidimensional Scaling and Multi-Response Permutation Procedure, showed that both methods were able to detect differences in communities at stations, despite some grouping by month and method. The indices and metrics derived from the two HD methods were found to give comparable but not identical assessments of water quality. Despite their differences, the methods were robust with respect to water quality categories derived from indices used nationally (HBI) and by NY state (BAP). For the common richness metrics, total taxa and EPT richness, there was no statistical difference between means from 3 samplings. Some metrics, especially percent tolerant collector-gatherer individuals, did show significant differences at certain stations. Indicator Species Analysis showed some taxa associated with each method. The observed community differences were thought mostly due to the difference in sampler deployment position.

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