The lower Buffalo River is one of the 47 Areas of Concern in the Great Lakes. The US Army Corps of Engineers is very interested in identifying the amount and chemical character of sediment that enters the Buffalo River and its source areas so that it can control sediment sources and thus reduce costs associated with dredging. We have embarked on a series of projects in partnership with several agencies to provide this information. The first series of projects were aimed at characterizing the spatio-temporal pattern of sediment pollution in the watershed and generating sediment budgets for the Buffalo River watershed and its sub-basins. Critical landscapes and stream reaches contributing sediment to the river have been identified, and hydrologic and sediment data measured in the watersheds been used to calibrate the models. Scenario analyses were then be performed on the calibrated models to answer important questions regarding the effectiveness of sediment control practices in the watershed.
The second series of projects involved the composition of the sediments themselves. Sediment cores from the Buffalo River were serially sectioned and analyzed for a variety of organic and inorganic contaminants. From these analyses, a history of contamination at a particular site can be interpreted. The trace metal chemistry of suspended sediments recovered from the major sub-catchments of the river with an in situ centrifuge on loan from the Canadian Centre for Inland Waters was also determined. While the water chemistry in the tributaries is well-known, there was no data on the chemistry of the sediments entering the river. The effectiveness of planned habitat restoration in the river can be estimated from this work.
