Biologists survey Elochoman River

Biologists from the federal National Rivers and Streams Assessment Program began work on the Elochoman River last week.

The four biologists launched their inflatable rafts across the road from the office in the Julia Butler Hansen National Wildlife Refuge for White-tail Deer on Thursday. Their plan was to research the river's habitat, biology, water quality and chemistry.

“Its part of the federal government’s five year study to survey Washington’s rivers and streams,” said biologist Dylan Monahan.

Monahan said he and fellow biologists would spend their day floating up and down the Elochoman on rafts gathering data. The information collected from the river will be added to other data from around the state then fed into a computer to create a snapshot of the state’s entire water quality condition.

“When we’re done we will have researched about 50 rivers, almost every major river in the state,” said Monahan.

When the data is compiled, a computer will use a random sampling to provide a region-by-region model of the condition of rivers and streams throughout Washington. This in turn will help the government formulate a national water usage policy.

Monahan said that the local study includes 14 rivers in Wahkiakum, Pacific and Grays Harbor counties. The planned research also takes the biologists to several lakes in the area.

The biologists will also measure stream flow and width to determine the amount, and speed of water passing through their channels and banks.

All the measuring will tell the biologists if the creek or waterway is good for salmon.

Washington State has monitored fresh water quality around the state for nearly 50 years. Every year biologists collect data from 216 water quality stations in and around the state.

In Wahkiakum, the Department of Ecology has six long-term water monitoring sites, one on the Elochoman River, one on Germany Creek, two sites on Abernathy Creek and two sites on Mill Creek. The biologists check each site for things like oxygen, phosphorus and fecal bacteria.