2003 Sabine River Basin Summary Report - Executive Summary

This Executive Summary to the 2003 Basin Summary Report, Sabine River Basin, Texas, was prepared in cooperation with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) under the authorization of the Texas Clean Rivers Act.

Activities and Accomplishments

Since initial operational activities began in 1954, the Sabine River Authority of Texas (SRA) has taken an active role in water quality matters and over the years has expanded its services to meet increasing needs throughout the Sabine River Basin. The SRA was established with responsibilities to control, store, preserve, and distribute the waters of the Sabine River and its tributary streams for useful purposes.

The water quality laboratory services and field programs are conducted by the Environmental Services Division (ESD) which operates a modern, well-equipped water quality testing laboratory near Orange. The SRA provides these services because they fulfill demonstrated needs and have proven to be beneficial for the SRA and its customers in managing and protecting the water resources in the Sabine Basin.

As part of its commitment to serve the evolving water resource needs of the Sabine Basin, SRA reorganized the Water Resources Branch (WRB) creating a new division, Resource Management/ Project Development (RMPD). The focus of the RMPD is to assist in water resource planning and development activities such as water supply, water resources protection, water quality issues, information management, and environmental services support.

The SRA uses a watershed approach to assess water quality conditions in the Sabine Basin. This methodology includes all available information in the SRA Watershed Inventory. In addition to water quality data collected by the SRA, datasets for the inventories have been received from a number of sources including municipalities, government agencies (local, state, and federal), and universities. Water quality data was not available for some subwatersheds, but assessments were possible due to the information available in the subwatershed Inventories. Data from September 1998 through August 2003 (5 years) were analyzed for this summary report. Trend analyses were also conducted for representative sites using water quality data collected from September 1993 through August 2003 (10 years). Spatial analyses were performed by subwatershed to correlate the water quality conditions with environmental factors.

Significant Findings

Water quality assessment summaries were developed by analyzing water quality data and all other available information for each subwatershed. The primary water quality issues are elevated bacteria levels and low dissolved oxygen. The problems tend to be in small streams with low elevation gradients. In most cases the problems occur infrequently and do not appear to significantly impact the designated use of the water body. Some of the impacts are due to excessive loading from point sources, but many of the concerns are the result of non-point source pollution or natural conditions. Assessments are presented below for each subwatershed in the Sabine Basin.

Sabine Basin Water Quality Summary

Segment/ Subwatershed ID		Descriptions	TCEQ Draft 2004 Texas 303(d) List	SRA Assessment of Water Quality Issues	Water Quality Condition	Level of Potential Impacts	Recommendations
							TCEQ	SRA
501	1.00	Main-stem		Localized Areas of Elevated Bacteria	Adequate	Low		Additional E. coli Monitoring
	1.01	Black Bayou - LA		No Known Issues	Excellent	Low
511	1.02	Cow Bayou	Low Dissolved Oxygen, High Fecal Coliform, Elevated pH (Segment 0511 & 4 Additional Sub-segments)	Low Dissolved Oxygen, High Fecal Coliform, Elevated pH	Poor	High	Conducting TMDL	Conducting TMDL
508	1.03	Adams Bayou	Low Dissolved Oxygen, High Fecal Coliform, (Segment 0508 & 3 Additional Sub-segments)	Low Dissolved Oxygen, High Fecal Coliform	Poor	High	Conducting TMDL	Conducting TMDL
	1.04	Burton Shell Canal - LA.		No Known Issues		Low
	1.05	Intracoastal Waterway - LA.		No Known Issues	Excellent	Low
	1.06	Conway Bayou - LA.		No Known Issues		Low
	1.07	Phoenix Lake (Oil Field) Confluence - LA.		No Known Issues		Low
	1.08	Old Hwy 90 Canal - LA.		No Known Issues		Low
	1.09	Coopers Gully (City of Orange)		No Known Issues	Adequate	Medium
	1.10	Little Cypress Bayou	Chronic Toxicity in Three Areas of One sub-segment	High Organic Loading	Poor	Medium	Conduct TMDL for Chronic Toxicity	Conduct Sampling After Changes in Discharge Status
	1.11	High-Line Canal - LA.		No Known Issues		Low
	1.12	Big Bayou at Big Eddy - LA.		No Known Issues		Low
	1.13	Old Sabine River Confluence - LA.