Land Use, Pollutants, and Water Quality in California Streams
California State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) | April 12th, 2012
A number of spatial patterns were evident in this survey of watersheds from throughout California. Stream sediment concentrations of heavy metals, such as cadmium, copper, lead and zinc, tended to be highest in urbanized Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay area watersheds. Metal concentrations in sediments from San Leandro Creek (SF Bay area), Ballona Creek and San Gabriel River (Los Angeles area) were among the highest in the state. These metals are released to the environment from brake pads, plumbing, industrial and commercial activities. Industrial organic compounds such as PCBs (banned since the 1970s), PBDEs (flame retardants) and PAHs (hydrocarbons) were also generally highest in stream sediments from the Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay areas, though high concentrations were also measured in some more remote locations.
In contrast to this urban pattern, mercury concentrations were highest in sediments from watersheds where it is geologically abundant and historically mined, though some urban streams also had relatively high mercury levels. The persistent legacy pesticide DDT was found in stream sediments from most urban and agricultural watersheds, where recent soil disturbance from development and tillage likely mobilizes DDT residues from applications more than 40 years ago. Pyrethroid pesticides are increasing in use in California and were detected in 55% of the samples statewide (51 of 92). The highest pyrethroid concentrations were measured in sediments collected from urban watersheds, plus two agricultural watersheds along the central coast. Approximately one quarter of the sediment samples collected were significantly toxic to amphipods, which are resident crustaceans representative of important aquatic food web links. Of these samples, 6.5% were identified as highly toxic. The highly toxic samples were collected from agricultural watersheds in the Tulare basin and central coast, in urban areas of southern California, and in the Tijuana River. Other toxic samples were collected from a wide range of watershed types, including those along the north coast, the Tahoe area, and urban and agricultural areas across the state.
On a statewide basis, watersheds with greater than 10% urban land cover had consistently higher sediment pollutant concentrations and toxicity than did watersheds characterized by agricultural or other land cover types. Metals, industrial compounds, DDTs, and pyrethroid pesticides were all found at significantly higher concentrations in urban streams. This pattern is evident at the statewide level, but other local and regional studies have previously shown that pollution levels and toxicity can be strongly related to agricultural and other land uses in specific areas. This is because the “agricultural” land use category used in the SPoT analysis is comprised of many different types of crops and farming practices, and the amount of polluted runoff from these lands varies depending on the types of practices employed.
Keywords
land use, mercury, nitrates, pesticides, pollutants, streams, Surface Water Ambient Monitoring Program (SWAMP)