Project Title: Internal Surface-Water Flows

Project Start Date: 1996 Project End Date: ongoing

Web Site: http://sflwww.er.usgs.gov/projects/surf_wtr_flow/

Location: Seminole Tribe of Florida Reservation

Funding Source: Seminole Tribe of Florida, Place-Based Studies Initiative

Principal Investigator: Mitch Murray

Project Personnel: Rick Solis and other Miami CWRS USGS Hydrologic Records support staff, USGS Ocala Lab support staff, Seminole Tribe Water Resource support staff, and South Florida Water Management ESDA staff

Supporting Organizations: Seminole Indian Tribe of Florida, South Florida Water Management (SFWMD)

Associated/Linked Projects: SFWMD/Seminole Agreement Working Group Report, Western Basin Project Management Plan

Overview & Objectives: Proposed modified water deliveries to Indian Tribal Lands, Big Cypress National Preserve, and Water Conservation Area 3A require that flow and nutrient loads at critical points in the interior surface water network be measured. Defining the foundation for water levels, flows, and nutrient loads has become an important baseline for Storm Treatment Area 5 and 6 development, recent C-139 Basin flow re-diversions, and future L-28 Interceptor Canal de-compartmentalization including flow rerouting into the Big Cypress Preserve. Flow monitoring for the two primary flow routes for both L-28 Interceptor Canal and L-28 is key to developing this framework.

Status: Provisional analysis and computation of 2003 water year flows continues along with acoustic flow rating calibration and auto-sampler servicing by Seminole Tribe water resource staff for both flow-weighted acoustic auto-sampler sites. Pre-publication data sets continue to be transferred to SFWMD support staff for inclusion in the semi-annual Seminole Tribe Working Group Report.

Recent & Planned Products: Publication was recently completed for the document, Water Resource Data, Florida, Vol. 2A which includes annual stage and discharge computation for the 2002 water year. The report, Feasibility of Estimating Constituent Concentrations and Loads Based on Data Recorded by Acoustic Instrumentation (OFR-02-285) was published as an ancillary product utilizing existing data for both stations.

Relevance to Greater Everglades Restoration Information Needs: Flow and total phosphorus budget summaries are critical to the newer non-point EPA guidelines and in turn are integral to many of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Project (CERP) planning objectives that rely heavily on Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDL) calculations. Analysis of Storm Treatment Area and Best Management Practice outcomes can only be evaluated through baseline data monitoring efforts. These data sets will define parameters for de-compartmentalization and Tribal Reservation flow re-routing initiatives currently under evaluation.

Key Findings:

• A limited set of critical flow, nutrient load, and water-level data sets have been collected to empirically document existing flow and load budgets
• Acoustic Doppler velocity indexing for wide channels has been proven superior to acoustic time-of-travel velocity indexing for slow flow monitoring following parallel data collection efforts utilizing both systems on the L-28 Interceptor Canal
• Semi-annual technical interagency meetings have resulted in addressing protocol, instrumentation, and quality assurance issues on a timely basis and has in turn established a template for other multi-agency CERP related efforts for TMDL monitoring using emerging acoustic real-time flow-weighted technologies