A Brazos River Authority aquatic scientist, wearing goggles, plunges into the murky depths of a tributary on a hot Texas summer day. A hushed stillness descends, broken only by the distant symphony of birds’ songs. Then, with a burst of energy, the aquatic scientist triumphantly emerges from the water, clutching a freshwater mussel in his hand.
What might seem like a casual summer scene of children splashing in a nearby river is actually a valuable data-gathering opportunity for aquatic scientists studying the health of the local ecosystem.
The BRA’s Environmental Department has an eight-member Field Operations Team that works throughout the Brazos River Basin testing water quality, monitoring the biological nature of the water, and keeping a record of the physical habitat surrounding the water, among other duties.
“Poison ivy, mosquitoes, snakes – that’s just a part of our life,” said Jeremy Nickolai, BRA’s Field Operations Manager. “We do routine sampling all year in all types of weather. If it’s too windy on the lakes, we’ll postpone runs, but it doesn’t matter if it’s cold; we go out there when it’s cold. We’ve sampled in the rain. And, of course, we always go out when it’s hot. Of course, nothing we do is worth getting someone hurt, so we remain very safety conscious. But, man, I’ve been on Possum Kingdom Lake at 32 degrees, running in a boat at 40 miles per hour with my tears freezing to the side of my face. That’s not fun, but sometimes it just happens.”
BRA aquatic scientists can determine the health of a waterway by seeing how that area’s features change or stay consistent. Those changes are shown through monitoring of several variables, including streamflow, stream size and channel dimensions, channel gradient, channel substrate size and type, habitat complexity, vegetative cover and structure, and stream channel-riparian zone interactions at specific places throughout the Brazos River Basin.
Water quality monitoring
A lot of what the field operations team does is conduct routine water quality monitoring. The furthest location north for testing begins near Seymour and extends southeast, all the way down to Rosharon near the Gulf of America. Essentially, this is observing changes, such as the appearance of a pollutant, and determining trends over time.
Monitoring information is used to determine the health of the area, identifying water pollution problems and their causes, and threats to human health. No other agency provides routine, baseline water quality data collection across the Brazos basin.
After collection, water samples are brought back to the laboratory at the BRA’s Central Office in Waco. The laboratory can then check the water samples for concerns like bacteria, water clarity, salt content, amounts of silt or sediment, and algae. Due to requirements for bacteria sampling, once collected, the aquatic scientist must have samples in the lab within eight hours.
“The team works closely with the TCEQ and other entities that sample in the Brazos River Basin to discuss who’s sampling where, what sites are being added, what needs more focus, among other things,” said Cory Scanes, a BRA Aquatic Scientist. This agency cooperation ensures there is no duplication of effort, streamlining the sampling process for state reporting. When sampling water on a reservoir, for instance, the team uses a water quality wand that has four different probes and captures readings of water temperature, dissolved oxygen, conductivity, and the pH of the water,” said Ryan Byrge, a BRA Aquatic Scientist.
“We also use, if we’re out taking flow, a flow tracker, which measures discharge/cubic feet per second, or how much water is actually moving by in one second,” Byrge said. “It will calculate the area of the stream bottom and the surface, and then it will actually take a velocity measurement at one particular place on the stream bottom.”
The BRA’s aquatic scientists can’t always just walk up to a water body to scoop up a bottle of water. Due to steep embankments and access limitations due to privately owned property, sometimes those samples are taken from the top of a bridge. Aquatic scientists, wearing hard hats and safety vests, lower equipment into the water below before pulling it back up and logging the information.
“Runoff from urban areas or certain agriculture operations where you’ll have high E. coli levels, the TCEQ will look at that data over time to see if it’s increasing, and that’s when they’ll make a management decision on what needs to be done to mitigate it,” Byrge said. “It’s a long process and a lot of data. It’s a collaborative effort between river authorities, TCEQ and other watershed groups that also go out and do the same kind of sampling that we do.”
Snapshot in time
Another part of the job is the biological monitoring. Remember that mussel story from before? Another part of basin monitoring is identifying what types of fish and other species (like mussels) are found in various streams and adjacent banks. Creeks, streams, and rivers are monitored for health by gathering information on the fish, plants and animals living on and near the water. Follow-up visits help illustrate what’s changed and why changes might be occurring. How many mussels are there? What types? How big are they? And how has the area changed over time?
“That gives us a snapshot of a period of time of how that stream is supporting the aquatic life,” Nickolai said.
Texas boasts a diverse population of over 50 native freshwater mussel species, making on-the-job training crucial for acquiring a comprehensive understanding of these aquatic creatures.
“When we’re out there doing biological assessments, we’ll catch hundreds of fish; a lot of them will be the same species,” Nickolai said. “There are several different species of sunfish, you just start learning the difference between them.”
Scanes says the whole team loves fish. His master’s thesis was on fish identification and before joining the BRA, he worked as an Environmental Protection Agency fish taxonomist.
“Aquatic Scientists Ryan Byrge and Calvin Smith are kind of our ‘bug guys’ right now,” Scanes said.
The two biologists benefitted from years of training under Jack Davis, the BRA’s former field operations manager, who retired last year. Davis was one of the premier macroinvertebrate experts in the state of Texas. Before retiring, he ensured both biologists had the knowledge needed to continue tracking the “bugs,” as he had done for more than 16 years with the BRA.
Byrge said part of his role is looking at macroinvertebrates, which are aquatic organisms that are visible to the naked eye and lack a backbone, such as insects, crustaceans, mollusks, and worms. The team takes a brush and sweeps up the bugs from rocks or wood debris, and then a very fine mesh net to filter them out from the sediment. While the fish can be identified in the field, macroinvertebrates must be brought back to the laboratory for identification.
“We net them and measure them, giving us an idea of what the biological integrity is of the stream over time,” Byrge said. “The mayflies, stoneflies, caddisflies are pretty intolerant of lower water quality. Knowing if these are found in the area is a good indication of water quality. If we start to see fewer of these sensitive species, it might signal that something is affecting the water.”
Feeling tree-mendous
Often times, the field operations team can go out in groups of two or four, depending on the size of the stream. However, when it’s time to do riparian surveys, it requires everyone, Nickolai said. What does that look like?
A lot of counting and identifying trees.
The team looks at two categories of trees: upland species, which are the trees that are the furthest from the stream or tributaries, and then the riparian trees, which are located on the bank of the waterway and are more adaptive to having wet roots or being inundated for longer periods of time. High water flows are good for riparian tree seed dispersal and adding sediment to the banks, which helps with the germination of those seeds, Nickolai said.
“It’s a super dynamic system,” Nickolai said. “It’s really interesting, actually. When it comes to fish, high flows can affect gravel beds by moving it out and replacing it with sandy substrates. Different fish will prefer different depths and substrates. Changes like this can happen in a year or months, even a day, depending on rainfall events. Meanwhile, with the trees, you’re working on a whole different time scale. Trees operate on a decade timetable. That’s a very long-term project.”
Because of that, monitoring and reporting results are vital in keeping track of how areas are changing.
“We did a riparian assessment recently on the Leon River,” Nickolai said. “In that area, normally the stream runs about 26 cubic feet per second, and it’s probably ankle deep and four feet wide. But recently, flows exceeding 20,000 cubic feet per second went through that stream. When we went back and did the riparian, it was a totally different channel. There was sluffing of the banks, and giant trees were laid in the stream. It was really, really interesting to see. Those are things that happen.”
The Field Operations Team also implements water quality improvement programs and projects and perform monitoring to support BRA operations and water supply projects. Information is used to develop and implement effective watershed-based strategies to maintain and improve environmental health throughout the Brazos River Basin.
The monitoring also helps other departments within the BRA. For instance, monitoring is required as part of the BRA’s System Operations Permit and to uphold contracts with other agencies, like the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Data is used to identify water quality and aquatic life concerns and impairments across the basin. Once a water quality problem is identified, BRA, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, watershed stakeholders, and any other relevant federal, state or local governmental agencies work together to determine the most appropriate course of action to address the concern.
And, of course, traveling from waterbody to waterbody, the field operations team practices ‘Clean, Drain, Dry.’
Invasive species are easily spread by boats and other recreational equipment, especially since they are not always visible to the naked eye. All it takes is one trip between an infested lake and a noninfected waterway with an unclean watercraft to do irreversible damage.
“More than most people, we understand not to drag species across the basin,” Nickolai said. “We’re really careful about that.”
To accomplish these tasks, the BRA also coordinates monitoring activities with a variety of agencies, including, but not limited to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the Texas State Soil & Water Conservation Board, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Texas Department of Transportation, the Texas Energy Reliability Council, the Texas General Land Office, the Texas Water Resources Institute and the Texas A&M AgriLife Research Extension.
“In our profession, every day is a learning opportunity,” Byrge said. “There’s just constant learning happening. I love to be out in the field.”