Using long term biological monitoring data to evaluate the recovery of disturbed systems

Biological monitoring has been conducted in industrially impacted streams near US Department of Energy facilities in Tennessee and Kentucky for almost ten years. A comprehensive Biological Monitoring and Abatement Program, which was developed to meet National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit requirements, includes tasks on (1 ) toxicity testing; (2) bioaccumulation in aquatic and terrestrial biota; (3) bioindicators of fish health; and (4) fish, macroinvertebrate, and periphyton community surveys. These studies have been used successfully to characterize spatial trends and demonstrate temporal recovery resulting from remedial actions and pollution abatement activities, identify contaminant sources, and provide data for conducting ecological risk assessments. The program uses multiple lines of evidence to evaluate stream recovery and illustrates the importance of using an integrated approach when determining stream health. An overview of data collected from studies on East Fork Poplar Creek since 1985 are presented to illustrate the ability of the program to document recovery at several levels of biological organization, including individuals, populations, and communities. Unique attributes of each task are highlighted to demonstrate the flexibility of both the Program and its components. The development of an integrated database and GIS technology to more comprehensively evaluate the data is presented