Relocation of USGS Monitoring Station from Intrenchment Creek to the South River will render data useless to monitoring water quality on Intrenchment Creek
USGS SE Regional Director Holly Weyers and USGS Director David Applegate
We must collect water quality on Intrenchment Creek to ensure pollution standards are not being violated!
USGS’ agreement with the City of Atlanta’s recommendation to relocate the USGS water quality monitoring station from Intrenchment Creek and Constitution Road to over a mile downstream on the South River (at Bouldercrest Road), will render water quality data totally useless for
monitoring the health of Intrenchment Creek.
The current site on Constitution Road provides indispensable water quality data connected to discharges from the Custer Avenue Combined Sewer Overflow Control Facility (CSO) and Intrenchment Creek Water Quality Pollution Control Faciality at Key Road, operated by the City of Atlanta. Both facilities are major point sources of pollution, making monitoring Intrechment Creek essential and required to ensure the facilities do not violate water quality standards.
Tell USGS Directors Holly Weyers and David Applegate that there is no viable option, other than the Constitution Road location, that captures relevant and consistent water quality data for these two-point sources of pollution on Intrenchment Creek.
Petition by
Sponsored by
To:
USGS SE Regional Director Holly Weyers and USGS Director David Applegate
From:
[Your Name]
USGS Directors Holly Weyers and David Applegate:
I am writing this letter to express my strong opposition to the relocation of the USGS monitoring station at Intrenchment Creek and Constitution Road, Atlanta, GA.
We must collect water quality on Intrenchment Creek! The Constitution Road site provides indispensable and virtually undiluted water quality data connected to discharges from the Custer Avenue Combined Sewer Overflow Control Facility (CSO) and Intrenchment Creek Water Quality Pollution Control Faciality at Key Road, operated by the City of Atlanta. Both of these facilities discharge “treated” sewage into Intrenchment Creek which flows to the South River. Both are major point sources of water pollution making water quality monitoring essential and required to ensure that the facilities do not violate water quality standards on Intrenchment Creek. These standards are established to protect water quality for both aquatic life and public health.
USGS’s agreement with the city’s recommendation to relocate the Intrenchment Creek monitoring station to the South River (and over a mile downstream at Bouldercrest Road) will render water quality data that is irreelvant and totally useless for monitoring the health of Intrenchment Creek!
As noted in the most recent USGS proposal to the city, received through a Freedom of Information Act request, there is no good location, other than Intrenchment Creek at Constitution Road, that captures relevant, objective, reliable, and consistent water quality data for these two facilities that are point sources of pollution on Intrenchment Creek.
It has been more than one year since USGS stopped fully monitoring this site. If, in fact, safety remains a genuine concern, other viable alternatives are available, such as providing a police escort on those infrequent occasions when equipment maintenance may be required.
Moving the collection site to a location that totally defeats the purpose of monitoring in the first place is excessive and unwarranted. All other options should be considered and the best one selected, eliminating the need for the drastic action of permanently discontinuing monitoring at this critical site.
Please reconsider the relocation of the USGS monitoring site as it's current location is critical to obtaining accurate water quality data on Intrenchment Creek.