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Experts See Peril in Reduced Monitoring of Nation's Streams and Rivers
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/11/science/11stream.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
Published: April 11, 2006
When Michael Griffin thinks about the stream gauge on the Licking River at Catawba, Ky., he says he has an uncomfortable sense that history may repeat itself.
Skip to next paragraph
Carol T. Powers for The New York Times
A Geological Survey technician at a gauge house on the Northeast Branch of the Anacostia River in Maryland, above.
Carol T. Powers for The New York Times
Another employee clearing debris from the intake pipe of the gauge house.
Carol T. Powers for The New York Times
A water data box.
The stream gauge, one of some 7,400 nationwide, does what its name implies: it measures the level and flow of water in a stream. The data have many uses, most prominently in providing warnings of floods.
In 1994, federal budget cuts led to the loss of a gauge on the Licking River at McKinneysburg. Three years later, a flash flood on the Licking inundated the town of Falmouth, six miles northwest, and killed four people.
The furor over the incident led to more gauges and increased federal financing. But in the past few years, budget pressures have built up once more. And this time, the gauge at Catawba is caught in the squeeze.
"We are on the same river probably within 50 miles of where we were before, and the same danged thing is happening again," said Mr. Griffin, who is the assistant director for hydrologic surveillance at the Kentucky Water Science Center. The center is part of the United States Geological Survey, which runs the nation's stream-gauge network.
"Another flood hits, we might be back in exactly the same situation we were in back in '97," he said.
River flooding kills about 125 people each year and costs billions of dollars in property damage. "That's more deaths per year than are attributed to tornadoes or hurricanes," said Thomas Graziano, the chief of the hydrologic services division of the National Weather Service.
The network of gauges, including temporary devices that can be installed at a spot that becomes worrisome, can help warn that a flood is on the way so people can move to higher ground. Without gauges, however, there are no data, and "we can't meet our river forecast and warning mission without this data," Mr. Graziano said.
For all that, a stream gauge is a humble thing. Typically, a small structure like an outhouse on the stream bank protects the equipment.
Older gauges have sensors in a well dug under the structure. A pipe connects the well to the water flowing by. The "stilling well" isolates the level of the water without the interference of waves, and the position of a float measures the height of the water. Newer gauges accomplish the task without the stilling well. Separate measurements determine the velocity of the flow.
And while the data from gauges are best known for alerting people to floods, the devices serves many other purposes. The data help determine how often an area might be flooded, and with what intensity; that, in turn, guides engineers and architects in building bridges, roads and communities. It helps determine the 100-year flood measurement that figures into flood insurance policies and construction regulations.
The data from the gauges also help measure the gradual changes in patterns of drought and high water. In Maine, for example, stronger stream flow in February and lower flow in May suggest that the winter ice has begun melting earlier. That can help assess the effect of global warming. But it is also important information for recreational fishermen and kayakers.
All of that monitoring costs money: each gauge costs, on average, $13,500 to run, said Michael Norris, coordinator of the National Streamflow Information Program. The national network, which has other costs as well, takes some $120 million each year to run about 7,400 gauges, down from a peak of 8,221 in 1968.
The program has always been supported by a patchwork of money from the United States Geological Survey; other federal agencies like the Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation; and more than 800 state and local "funding partners."
That arrangement can sometimes create tension, said Jay Gourley, a vice president of the Public Education Center, an environmental group that advocates greater resources for the system. "It's kind of a game of chicken between the states and the federal government," Mr. Gourley said. "The people who live in these flood-prone areas are the ones who are losing their property and dying in the meantime."
In the case of the Licking River, there is still debate over whether the deactivated stream gauge might have provided a crucial alert if it had still been in operation. Robert Hirsch, the associate director for water at the Geological Survey, said he believed that it would have. "Lives were lost, I think, in part because of the inadequacy of the warning," Dr. Hirsch said.
After that flood, the government expanded the network, mainly by reactivating stream gauges that had been discontinued, bringing the number to more than 7,500 from about 7,000.
It added financing for the network and put more of the program under direct federal control to protect critical gauges, with the budget increase beginning in 2001. "That resulted in a stabilization in the network," Dr. Hirsch said.
But then, Mr. Norris said, "Sept. 11 hit." With greater resources going to national security, the budget for the stream program stayed essentially flat while inflation caused costs to rise about 3 percent each year.
And while the pressure on the federal government to hold the line on rising budgets is fierce, at the state and local level it is even more so. "This year we've been hearing from quite a few of our funding sources that things are not looking so good for continued funding," said Glenn G. Patterson, the head of the cooperative water program for the Geological Survey, which pays for 65 percent of the network.
And so the network has begun to shrink again for the first time since the 1990's. The network lost about 400 gauges in 2005, Mr. Norris said, with 350 added for a net loss of 50. At this point, Mr. Patterson said, about 200 gauges are "threatened" by budget cuts at some level. "We've been holding pretty steady at about 7,400," he said, and added, "We're looking at a pretty big net drop coming into '07."
Dr. Hirsch said, "Now we're in the same position we were at the end of the 90's."
The Bush administration has requested an additional $2 million on top of the roughly $14 million direct federal contribution from the Geological Survey to the program, which Mr. Patterson called "a step in the right direction." But, Mr. Patterson said, it will only help reinstate as many as 50 gauges — but that does little to replace the number already discontinued or threatened. "It won't solve the problem," he said.
The question of money comes down to national priorities, Mr. Norris said. He freely admitted that "there's no reason to keep every stream gauge that's ever started" since the program began in 1889. Yet "there's nobody who says, 'We shouldn't be doing this; this is a waste of taxpayer dollars,' " he added. "What's more important? Is education more important or is a stream gauge at another location more important? Keeping terrorists out or getting more stream flow information?"
Brian Mrazik, a retired Geological Survey official, says complacency often leads people to question the expense of the gauges. "When floods come along, everyone's excited. They say, 'Let's fund gauges.' You go 20, 30 years without a flood, and people say, 'What the hell are we paying for this thing for?' "
The gauges most likely to be cut are those that do not have a critical role in flood alerts and safety, Mr. Patterson said, but loss of that data can have serious implications. "The real impact, the real benefit from stream gauges, comes from the myriad day-to-day decisions of how big to make a culvert or how big to make a bridge," he said.
That loss of data troubles Mark T. Anderson, South Dakota Water Science Center director. He says that the process of losing stream gauges is a "nagging, festering problem" and that South Dakota lost seven gauges because of budget cuts at the Bureau of Indian Affairs. One of those gauges had been operating for 62 years, and another for 53.
"If you have a discontinuity of a couple of years even, you lose part of the substantial investment that's been made in the period of record," Mr. Anderson said. "It's like you're squandering the investment of your predecessors."
Besides, he added, "You can't just run a gauge for 60 years and shut it down and say, 'Everything is fine.' Things keep changing."
And so, Mr. Anderson said, those long-lived gauges could ultimately prove more important than today's flood or tomorrow's bridge. "It is these longer-term stream flow records that help us unravel what is going on with climate change."
Some of the most important gauges for that kind of work are the ones that are the farthest from communities, in rural areas where natural conditions prevail. But those are the gauges that are least likely to alert a community to a flood, and so they are lower on the list of gauges to save.
Advocates for a more robust stream gauge network, like Mr. Gourley, argue that the system is a bit like a pointillist painting: the loss of a single dot would probably not change the overall picture. But lose enough of them over time, and the image is lost.
Robin G. Middlemis-Brown, director of the Geological Survey's Iowa Water Science Center, said he was especially sorry to see a gauge blink out that had been providing data on the Des Moines River in Iowa for 87 years.
"If you don't know your past, you can't tell your future," Mr. Middlemis-Brown said. "It's like going blind, slowly."
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/11/science/11stream.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
Published: April 11, 2006
When Michael Griffin thinks about the stream gauge on the Licking River at Catawba, Ky., he says he has an uncomfortable sense that history may repeat itself.
Skip to next paragraph
Carol T. Powers for The New York Times
A Geological Survey technician at a gauge house on the Northeast Branch of the Anacostia River in Maryland, above.
Carol T. Powers for The New York Times
Another employee clearing debris from the intake pipe of the gauge house.
Carol T. Powers for The New York Times
A water data box.
The stream gauge, one of some 7,400 nationwide, does what its name implies: it measures the level and flow of water in a stream. The data have many uses, most prominently in providing warnings of floods.
In 1994, federal budget cuts led to the loss of a gauge on the Licking River at McKinneysburg. Three years later, a flash flood on the Licking inundated the town of Falmouth, six miles northwest, and killed four people.
The furor over the incident led to more gauges and increased federal financing. But in the past few years, budget pressures have built up once more. And this time, the gauge at Catawba is caught in the squeeze.
"We are on the same river probably within 50 miles of where we were before, and the same danged thing is happening again," said Mr. Griffin, who is the assistant director for hydrologic surveillance at the Kentucky Water Science Center. The center is part of the United States Geological Survey, which runs the nation's stream-gauge network.
"Another flood hits, we might be back in exactly the same situation we were in back in '97," he said.
River flooding kills about 125 people each year and costs billions of dollars in property damage. "That's more deaths per year than are attributed to tornadoes or hurricanes," said Thomas Graziano, the chief of the hydrologic services division of the National Weather Service.
The network of gauges, including temporary devices that can be installed at a spot that becomes worrisome, can help warn that a flood is on the way so people can move to higher ground. Without gauges, however, there are no data, and "we can't meet our river forecast and warning mission without this data," Mr. Graziano said.
For all that, a stream gauge is a humble thing. Typically, a small structure like an outhouse on the stream bank protects the equipment.
Older gauges have sensors in a well dug under the structure. A pipe connects the well to the water flowing by. The "stilling well" isolates the level of the water without the interference of waves, and the position of a float measures the height of the water. Newer gauges accomplish the task without the stilling well. Separate measurements determine the velocity of the flow.
And while the data from gauges are best known for alerting people to floods, the devices serves many other purposes. The data help determine how often an area might be flooded, and with what intensity; that, in turn, guides engineers and architects in building bridges, roads and communities. It helps determine the 100-year flood measurement that figures into flood insurance policies and construction regulations.
The data from the gauges also help measure the gradual changes in patterns of drought and high water. In Maine, for example, stronger stream flow in February and lower flow in May suggest that the winter ice has begun melting earlier. That can help assess the effect of global warming. But it is also important information for recreational fishermen and kayakers.
All of that monitoring costs money: each gauge costs, on average, $13,500 to run, said Michael Norris, coordinator of the National Streamflow Information Program. The national network, which has other costs as well, takes some $120 million each year to run about 7,400 gauges, down from a peak of 8,221 in 1968.
The program has always been supported by a patchwork of money from the United States Geological Survey; other federal agencies like the Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation; and more than 800 state and local "funding partners."
That arrangement can sometimes create tension, said Jay Gourley, a vice president of the Public Education Center, an environmental group that advocates greater resources for the system. "It's kind of a game of chicken between the states and the federal government," Mr. Gourley said. "The people who live in these flood-prone areas are the ones who are losing their property and dying in the meantime."
In the case of the Licking River, there is still debate over whether the deactivated stream gauge might have provided a crucial alert if it had still been in operation. Robert Hirsch, the associate director for water at the Geological Survey, said he believed that it would have. "Lives were lost, I think, in part because of the inadequacy of the warning," Dr. Hirsch said.
After that flood, the government expanded the network, mainly by reactivating stream gauges that had been discontinued, bringing the number to more than 7,500 from about 7,000.
It added financing for the network and put more of the program under direct federal control to protect critical gauges, with the budget increase beginning in 2001. "That resulted in a stabilization in the network," Dr. Hirsch said.
But then, Mr. Norris said, "Sept. 11 hit." With greater resources going to national security, the budget for the stream program stayed essentially flat while inflation caused costs to rise about 3 percent each year.
And while the pressure on the federal government to hold the line on rising budgets is fierce, at the state and local level it is even more so. "This year we've been hearing from quite a few of our funding sources that things are not looking so good for continued funding," said Glenn G. Patterson, the head of the cooperative water program for the Geological Survey, which pays for 65 percent of the network.
And so the network has begun to shrink again for the first time since the 1990's. The network lost about 400 gauges in 2005, Mr. Norris said, with 350 added for a net loss of 50. At this point, Mr. Patterson said, about 200 gauges are "threatened" by budget cuts at some level. "We've been holding pretty steady at about 7,400," he said, and added, "We're looking at a pretty big net drop coming into '07."
Dr. Hirsch said, "Now we're in the same position we were at the end of the 90's."
The Bush administration has requested an additional $2 million on top of the roughly $14 million direct federal contribution from the Geological Survey to the program, which Mr. Patterson called "a step in the right direction." But, Mr. Patterson said, it will only help reinstate as many as 50 gauges — but that does little to replace the number already discontinued or threatened. "It won't solve the problem," he said.
The question of money comes down to national priorities, Mr. Norris said. He freely admitted that "there's no reason to keep every stream gauge that's ever started" since the program began in 1889. Yet "there's nobody who says, 'We shouldn't be doing this; this is a waste of taxpayer dollars,' " he added. "What's more important? Is education more important or is a stream gauge at another location more important? Keeping terrorists out or getting more stream flow information?"
Brian Mrazik, a retired Geological Survey official, says complacency often leads people to question the expense of the gauges. "When floods come along, everyone's excited. They say, 'Let's fund gauges.' You go 20, 30 years without a flood, and people say, 'What the hell are we paying for this thing for?' "
The gauges most likely to be cut are those that do not have a critical role in flood alerts and safety, Mr. Patterson said, but loss of that data can have serious implications. "The real impact, the real benefit from stream gauges, comes from the myriad day-to-day decisions of how big to make a culvert or how big to make a bridge," he said.
That loss of data troubles Mark T. Anderson, South Dakota Water Science Center director. He says that the process of losing stream gauges is a "nagging, festering problem" and that South Dakota lost seven gauges because of budget cuts at the Bureau of Indian Affairs. One of those gauges had been operating for 62 years, and another for 53.
"If you have a discontinuity of a couple of years even, you lose part of the substantial investment that's been made in the period of record," Mr. Anderson said. "It's like you're squandering the investment of your predecessors."
Besides, he added, "You can't just run a gauge for 60 years and shut it down and say, 'Everything is fine.' Things keep changing."
And so, Mr. Anderson said, those long-lived gauges could ultimately prove more important than today's flood or tomorrow's bridge. "It is these longer-term stream flow records that help us unravel what is going on with climate change."
Some of the most important gauges for that kind of work are the ones that are the farthest from communities, in rural areas where natural conditions prevail. But those are the gauges that are least likely to alert a community to a flood, and so they are lower on the list of gauges to save.
Advocates for a more robust stream gauge network, like Mr. Gourley, argue that the system is a bit like a pointillist painting: the loss of a single dot would probably not change the overall picture. But lose enough of them over time, and the image is lost.
Robin G. Middlemis-Brown, director of the Geological Survey's Iowa Water Science Center, said he was especially sorry to see a gauge blink out that had been providing data on the Des Moines River in Iowa for 87 years.
"If you don't know your past, you can't tell your future," Mr. Middlemis-Brown said. "It's like going blind, slowly."
