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SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPATIAL WATER DATA

Thursday, October 18, 2001, at 10:00 a.m.-12:00 Noon
Room #709, EPA Fairchild Building
499 S. Capitol Street
Washington, D.C.

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OCTOBER MEETING

The audio bridge (teleconference line) is 703-648-5032
Conference code #41883
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ATTENDEES:
Katherine Lins   USGS/Water
David Wells   EPA/OW/OST
Michael Plastino   EPA/OW/IO
Jim Currens   KY Geologic Survey/UnivKY
Joseph Ray   KY Division of Water
Keven Roth   USGS/Geography
Doug Nebert   FGDC
Hal Hallett   DOI/BLM
Marilyn Ginsberg   EPA/OW/OGWDW
Bob Pierce   USGS/Water
Wendy Blake-Coleman   EPA/EIO

AGENDA:

10:00 am

Introductions  

 

Status of Watershed Boundaries Datasets (WBD)
Power Point Presentation - (1,392KB)
Bob Pierce

 

 

Affect of Karst terrain on Water delineation (summary below)
(Power Point Presentation) - (8,392KB)
James Currens
Kentucky Geological Survey &
Joseph Ray
Kentucky Division of Water

12;00 Noon

ADJOURN

Summary of Currens & Ray Presentation:
The focus of Mr. Curren's and Mr. Ray's was although water in the Karst basins is considered groundwater, the flow behavior of the systems is in fact more like surfacewater. Conduit flow in these systems is typically convergent, fast, and turbulent. The stated purposes of the HUC delineation is to provide standardized data sets for "watershed management, water quality initiatives, watershed modeling, resource inventory and assessment and establishing total maximum daily loads" (Federal Standard for Delineation of Hydrologic Unit Boundaries, draft of June 4, 2001). We argue that all of these uses are dependent on accurate watershed delineation which the HUC boundaries do not provide in many Karst areas. This was recently demonstrated by a fuel spill in the Turnhole Spring basin, a tributary of the Green River, which discharges within Mammoth Cave National Park. The HUC map erroneously attributed the drainage from the spill site to the Barren River. Thus, either the recommended use for the HuC boundaries must be revised and limited or the boundaries must be revised when data or karst basins becomes available.

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