The freshwater trust (TFT) will use this funding to expand a high resolution, watershed level mercury monitoring network in the willamette river basin to characterize spatiotemporal trends in…

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) awarded a $968,072 Project Grant under the Geographic Programs - Columbia River Basin Restoration (CFDA 66.962) program to The Freshwater Trust (TFT) on November 15, 2024. The funding will support TFT's expansion of a high-resolution, watershed-level mercury monitoring network in the Willamette River Basin within the broader Columbia River Basin. The project aims to characterize spatiotemporal trends in mercury levels and engage community scientists in four focal watersheds.

Key activities include iteratively training and applying a national-scale predictive model for mercury in dragonflies to estimate risk, ground-truthing these predictions through targeted fine-resolution monitoring, clarifying source attribution for dominant mercury pathways using stable isotope techniques, and testing the impact of specific land management actions on mercury levels. TFT will partner with Oregon State University (OSU) and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to execute the project, with OSU leading study design, fieldwork, modeling, and deliverable preparation, and USGS responsible for sample processing, analysis, and data management.

The freshwater trust (TFT) will use this funding to expand a high resolution, watershed level mercury monitoring network in the willamette river basin to characterize spatiotemporal trends in mercury levels and engage community scientists in four focal watersheds across the columbia river basin. Activities:TFT will iteratively train and apply a national scale predictive model for mercury in dragonflies to estimate mercury risk in four major columbia river tributary watersheds. They will ground truth these predictions with targeted fine resolution monitoring to characterize spatiotemporal trends across representative environmental conditions. The project comprises four main objectives: engage new communities to expand our participatory dragonfly mercury monitoring program to cover four focal watersheds; fine-tune a national-scale predictive model of dragonfly mercury concentrations to estimate site-specific risk throughout the basin; clarify source attribution for dominant mercury source-to-site pathways using stable isotope techniques; and test the impact of specific land management actions on mercury levels.subrecipient:the freshwater trust will partner with and administer subawards to oregon state university (OSU) and the U.S. Geographical survey (USGS). With support from OSU's office for sponsored research and award administration, TFT will oversee spending and performance. OSU will be responsible for: leading study design and site selection; completing all fieldwork; hosting educational outreach events; leading iterative model training, testing, and prediction; analyzing stable mercury isotope and best management practice effectiveness datasets; and preparing and disseminating all deliverables. USGS will be responsible for: processing and analyzing all tissue samples for mercury concentrations and stable mercury isotope ratios; conducting quality assurance reviews; housing all project data in its actively managed database; participating in modeling; and communicating project findings to a broader audience. Outcomes:outputs include 240 sites sampled for mercury, 3,600 dragonflies analyzed, 50 fish tissue samples analyzed, 240 water sampling analyzed, three basin-wide maps developed, a best management practices factsheet developed and distributed, 1,000 community scientists engaged, and summary reports created for tribes and anglers. The primary outcome for this project is the rigorous estimate of mercury trends and source contributions that will empower science-based management for minimizing mercury risk.