Instream Water Quality Monitoring. Protecting water quality for the benefit of people and the environment is viewed as a high priority and is a mutual goal of the Covered Parties and the USFWS. The Covered Parties all complete ambient water quality monitoring throughout their service area, but each also voluntarily participates in the Texas CRP, which has been administered in the Trinity River Basin by TRA under a grant from the TCEQ since 1991. The TRA CRP is responsible for maintaining an instream water quality sampling program throughout the basin through in-house stream sampling and data management for a network of partners that voluntarily submit their data to the program that is housed at the TCEQ. The benefit of the CRP program is that all data, regardless of the collection entity, is collected with standard methods and under a Quality Assurance Project Plan. The TRA CRP is responsible for submitting quality assured data to the Statewide Surface Water Quality Monitoring Information System (SWQMIS), which is used to inform biannual statewide water quality assessments, discharge permitting, and scientific investigations of all types, to include ongoing studies for the Covered Species. Trinity River Authority’s CRP has built an extensive network of over 250 monitoring stations, and since 1991, has been responsible for over 39,000 unique sampling events and 604,400 individual parameter results that have been added to the SWQMIS database. Additionally, TRA completes biological sampling events, 24- hour data sonde deployments (water quality probes), and targeted water quality special studies31. Grant funding for this program is provided by TCEQ on a 2-year rotating contract period and is in excess of $700,000. This program is very important to water quality permitting operations at TCEQ, and funding is expected to continue through the term of this agreement. This program is the primary source of instream data that is used to perform the biennial state-wide water quality stream assessment, or Integrated Report, and inform permitting decisions. As such, funding is expected to continue through the term of this agreement. Should TCEQ unexpectedly discontinue funding the CRP during the term of the agreement, the Covered Parties are committed to continuing water quality monitoring and reporting for the Trinity Basin to the mutual benefit of the Covered Parties and the Covered Species. Should this unexpectedly occur, it will not be possible for the Covered Parties to continue the program at the...
