This report presents the study design, environmental data, and quality-assurance data for an integrated chemical and biological study of selected streams or lakes that receive wastewater-treatment plant effluent in Minnesota. This study

Natural and synthetic organic contaminants in municipal wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluents can cause ecosystem impacts, raising concerns about their persistence in receiving streams. In this study, Lagrangian sampling, in which the same approximate parcel of water is tracked as it moves downstream, was conducted at Boulder Creek, Colorado and Fourmile Creek, Iowa to determine in-stream transport and attenuation of organic contaminants discharged from two secondary WWTPs. Similar stream reaches were evaluated, and samples were collected at multiple sites during summer and spring hydrologic conditions. Travel times to the most downstream (7.4 km) site in Boulder Creek were 6.2 h during the summer and 9.3 h during the spring, and to the Fourmile Creek 8.4 km downstream site times were 18 and 8.8 h, respectively. Discharge was measured at each site, and integrated composite samples were collected and analyzed for >200 organic contaminants including metal complexing agents, nonionic surfactant degradates, personal care products, pharmaceuticals, steroidal hormones, and pesticides. The highest concentration (>100 μg L(-1)) compounds detected in both WWTP effluents were ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid and 4-nonylphenolethoxycarboxylate oligomers, both of which persisted for at least 7 km downstream from the WWTPs. Concentrations of pharmaceuticals were lower (<1 μg L(-1)), and several compounds, including carbamazepine and sulfamethoxazole, were detected throughout the study reaches. After accounting for in-stream dilution, a complex mixture of contaminants showed little attenuation and was persistent in the receiving streams at concentrations with potential ecosystem implications.

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PrefaceThe Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project was initiated by the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management to respond to several critical issues including, but not limited to, forest and rangeland health, anadromous fish concerns, terrestrial species viability concerns, and the recent decline in traditional commodity flows. The charter given to the project was to develop a scientifically sound, ecosystem-based strategy for managing the lands of the interior Columbia River basin administered by the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. The Science Integration Team was organized to develop a framework for ecosystem management, an assessment of the socioeconomic and biophysical systems in the basin, and an evaluation of alternative management strategies. This paper is one in a series of papers developed as background material for the framework, assessment, or evaluation of alternatives. It provides more detail than was possible to disclose directly in the primary documents.The Science Integration Team, although organized functionally, worked hard at integrating the approaches, analyses, and conclusions. It is the collective effort of team members that provides depth and understanding to the work of the project. An assessment of small rural communities in the interior and upper Columbia River basin was conducted for the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project (ICBEMP). The characteristics and conditions of the rural communities in this region, which are complex and constantly changing, were examined. The research also assessed the resilience of the region's communities, which was defined as a community's ability to respond and adapt to change in the most positive, constructive ways possible for mitigating the impacts of change on the community. The study found that a town's population size, autonomy, economic diversity, quality of life, and experience with change were all factors related to the town's resiliency and the extent to which it was changing and preparing for change.Keywords: Rural communities, forest communities, resource dependence, community assessment, ecosystem assessment, social impact assessment, resiliency, Columbia basin. Research Goal and PremisesThe goal of the research described here was to assess the characteristics and conditions of small, rural communities in the interior and upper Columbia River basin (henceforth, the basin); the basin includes a lower basin in eastern Washington and Oregon and an upper basin that spans all of Idaho, western Montana, and western Wyoming. This research was based on several premises:• The small, rural community is an important scale for social assessment. For most residents of rural regions such as the study area-even those people living outside the borders of incorporated towns and cities-the community where they socialize, shop, and perhaps work or go to church becomes the focus of their social lives.Social sciences recognize the significance of this scale of social organization. Those sciences include soc...

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