Water Quality Monitoring

Water quality is an important key to our survival, as well as a key concern of any impact to the natural environment. Threats to water quality range from natural disasters to human impacts, and are considered when any waters are impacted, ranging from the smallest of streams to the largest of bays and estuaries.

In Texas, water quality is regulated by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) Water Quality Standards. Additionally, other local public entities (such as cities, groundwater districts, etc.) can be involved in the regulatory process. When impacting jurisdictional waters, also known as “waters of the U.S.” (including, but not limited to: lakes, rivers, streams, wetlands, and territorial seas), a Texas Pollution Discharge Elimination System (TPDES) permit is required before any point discharge to such waters (see Permitting).

There are numerous water quality monitoring stations available across the state. These stations are maintained by different Federal, State and local entities and typically provide real-time water quality data. Even though this monitoring network is vast, there are large areas of the state and country which do not have water quality monitoring and data readily available.

Arroyo staff have extensive knowledge and experience with collecting and analyzing water quality data. This experience encompasses both freshwater, saltwater and estuarine (where freshwater and saltwater meet) ecosystems. Arroyo staff have helped design and execute water quality monitoring studies, including large scale longitudinal studies that collected valuable water quality data along miles of rivers and streams, and within lakes and coastal bays. Water quality studies have included both short-term (instantaneous) and long-term (yearlong; with routine instrument maintenance) deployments. All water quality data collection efforts meet quality control and quality assurance requirements outlined by the TCEQ and has informed on Texas Pollution Discharge Elimination Systems (TPDES) permitting actions (see Projects).

Arroyo staff also have experience in designing and executing independent groundwater sampling and monitoring studies. This experience includes sampling remote groundwater wells and spring orifices, data processing, data analysis and trend identification.

In addition to water quality data collection, Arroyo staff have extensive experience with State and Federal water quality databases and datasets including data acquisition, quality control/quality assurance, data processing and data analysis.