Project Summary
PE has been awarded a multi-year contract with the City of Durham to collect benthic insects during spring and summer surveys. Many of the streams in Durham County are within the Triassic Basin and offer unique management issues to the City Managers. Triassic Basin streams typically dry up or stop flowing during summer and fall seasons and the benthic insect populations are depauperate because of this.
Unfortunately these same streams are given lower bioclassifications because of the flow, not necessary because of water pollution problems. These data are part of the comprehensive ambient monitoring program for the City. Potentially these data will be used by the regulatory agencies to update biological classification criteria for this ecoregion in North Carolina.