Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2007TX266B

Bacterial Impairment Assessment for Lake Granbury Watershed

Institute: Texas
Year Established: 2007 Start Date: 2007-03-01 End Date: 2008-02-29
Total Federal Funds: $5,000 Total Non-Federal Funds: $10,133

Principal Investigators: Kendra Riebschleager, R Karhikeyan

Abstract: The Brazos River Authority (BRA) plans to work with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), local entities, and federal and state agencies to develop a watershed protection plan for Lake Granbury with a focus to reduce bacterial contamination. Lake Granbury is a man-made lake within the Middle Brazos-Palo Pinto watershed. This lake is used for recreation and as a water source for municipalities, industries, and agriculture. According to a water quality study several coves are nearing bacterial impairments and one is already impaired. Fecal coliform, an indicator of E. coli, can be contributed from a wide variety of both point and non-point sources within the watershed including overflowing wastewater treatment facilities, manure application on agricultural lands, wildlife, livestock, pets, and poor septic systems. My research will provide a spatial representation of water quality modeling for E. coli applying GIS to determine the sources of contamination in order to design BMPs for the watershed protection plan. Further, I plan to develop an automated program within GIS so that a user can input watershed characteristics, point sources, and various parameter distributions and have the program point to problem areas and provide information about the sources of bacteria. The program could be modified for use in similar watersheds with similar problems in Texas. I expect the results of this project will prove an overwhelming contribution of bacteria is from failing septic systems along the lake.