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| Triangle Area Water Supply Monitoring Project |
The greater Research Triangle Area is a six-county region within the upper Cape Fear and upper Neuse River Basins in North Carolina. Between 1990 and 1999, the population in the Triangle Area increased by 30 percent. Continued growth has increased the need for public water supplies. Seventy-seven percent of the households in the region depend on water supplies drawn from streams and lakes. Two multipurpose reservoirs, eight smaller reservoirs, and six rivers supply water for the 30 municipalities in the area.
Because of this reliance on surface water for water supply and the potential
impact of growth on the quality of the region's water supply sources, local
governments in the region recognize that water-quality monitoring is crucial
to the protection of the Triangle Area's surface-water resources. In 1988, a
number of local governments in the six-county region, with assistance from Triangle
J Council of Governments (TJCOG), formed the Triangle Area Water Supply
Monitoring Project to systematically evaluate the quality of several water-supply
sources in the region. With assistance from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS),
the Project has collected and analyzed water-quality samples from reservoirs
and streams and collected continuous discharge record from streams in the study
area for more than 20 years. These data, along with data collected by the North
Carolina Division of Water Quality (DWQ) and with data collected as part of
a program of the USGS, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the City of Durham,
form a long-term comprehensive data base on the quality of many of the area's
water-supply reservoirs and rivers, and selected tributaries to those water
supplies.
In the last 20 years, concerns about water-quality of the area's water supplies
and the impact of development on reservoir eutrophication and contaminant concentrations
have remained prominent, although specific concerns have changed. Monitoring
initially focused on determining the occurrence of synthetic organic compounds
in the water column and bed sediments; later monitoring and interpretive efforts
focused on nutrient and sediment loads and trends. Issues such as the occurrence
of disinfection by-products, microbial pathogens, and pharmaceutical and personal
care products have also been addressed.
Data collection began in October 1988 and will continue through at least June
2012. A key strength of the monitoring program has been the long-term consistency
of data collection locations, constituents, and sampling methods. This was recognized
during a workshop in December 1997 that was attended by a diverse group of scientists
and government agency staff who were asked to review progress and design of
the project.
