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Cranberry Pond and Woods Lake are small, acidic headwater lakes in the west-central Adirondack region of New York State. The lakes differ in size and depth but have similar watershed characteristics. Both watersheds contain thin eolian and sandy till deposits overlying granitic gneiss and have limited capacity to store and transmit groundwater. Total lake inflow was calculated as a residual of a monthly hydrologic balance based on measured precipitation, lake outflow, change in lake storage, and estimated evaporation; surface-water and groundwater inflow to each lake also were estimated. Results indicate that the lakes are hydrologically similar and are dominated by surface-water systems with highly variable runoff that responds rapidly to precipitation. Groundwater, which constituted about 16% of the total inflow to Cranberry Pond and from 31 to 38% of the total inflow to Woods Lake in 1984–86, moves through a shallow flow system that provides little stabilizing influence on the hydrology or water chemistry of the lakes. Error analysis of the hydrologic balance indicated that total annual inflow, calculated as a residual of the hydrologic balance, is accurate to within 12%. Calculated monthly inflow values are subject to greater potential error that ranges up to 46%.

No abstract

This report broadly characterizes the hydrology of Area 6, the 1,329 square-mile North Branch Potomac River basin. Area 6 is one of 24 study areas located within the Eastern Coal Province for which hydrologic reports are being prepared. Area 6 comprises parts of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia and is almost evenly divided between two physiographic provinces. The Allegheny Mountain section of the Appalachian Plateaus physiographic province encompasses the western half of the area and contains coal-bearing rocks of Pennsylvanian age. The area contains two coal-producing regions, the Georges Creek Coal Field and the Upper Potomac Coal Field, which have 1.6 billion tons of mineable coal reserves available from 16 major coal seams. Coal production from the area amounted to 3.8 million tons in 1978 and has been steadily increasing in the last several years. The eastern half of the area lies within the Middle section of the Valley and Ridge physiographic province and contains noncoal-bearing rocks of pre-Pennsylvanian age. Area 6 has a continental, temperate climate and receives between 36 and 45 inches of precipitation depending on elevation. The soils of the area were formed from noncarbonate, sedimentary rocks and are generally of high acidity and low fertility. Forest land occupies over 80 percent of the land surface, whereas surface mining occupies only about 1.5 percent of the land surface. The area is drained entirely by the North Branch Potomac River. Major tributaries that drain coal mining areas are Stony River, Abram Creek, Savage River, Georges Creek, and Wills Creek. New Creek, Evitts Creek, and Patterson Creek drain unmined areas. Water used in the area is mostly from surfacewater resources. Groundwater accounts for only 0.5 percent of total water withdrawals. Seventy-two percent of groundwater withdrawals are used by the coal-mining industry. More than 140 miles of streams in Area 6 are affected by mine drainage. These streams are devoid of fish life and otherwise have severely reduced biological communities. The U.S. Geological Survey has recently collected hydrologic data from 56 sites in Area 6. These data are available from computer storage through the National Water Data Exchange (NAWDEX).

A qualitative comparison was made of the streamgaging programs of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and three non-Federal agencies in terms of approximate costs and streamflow-information products produced. The three non-Federal agencies provided the USGS with detailed information on their streamgaging program and related costs, and the USGS explored, through publicly available Web sites and one-on-one discussions, the comparability of the streamflow information produced. The type and purpose of streamgages operated, the quality of streamflow record produced, and cost-accounting methods have a great effect on streamgaging costs. There are many uses of streamflow information, and the information requirements for streamgaging programs differ greatly across this range of purposes. A premise of the USGS streamgaging program is that the network must produce consistent data of sufficient quality to support the broadest range of possible uses. Other networks may have a narrower range of purposes; as a consequence, the method of operation, dataquality objectives, and information delivery may be different from those for a multipurpose network. As a result, direct comparison of the overall cost (or of the cost per streamgage) among these programs is not possible. The analysis is, nonetheless, very instructive and provides USGS program managers, agency leadership, and other agency streamgaging program managers useful insight to influence future decisions. Even though the comparison of streamgaging costs and streamflow information products was qualitative, this analysis does offer useful insights on longstanding questions of USGS streamgaging costs.