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BACKGROUND
The Los Angeles River Watershed-wide
Monitoring Program (LARWMP) is designed to answer five specific questions of interest
to a broad range of stakeholders within the watershed:
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What is the environmental health of streams in the overall watershed?
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Are the conditions at areas of unique importance getting better or worse?
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Are receiving waters near discharges meeting water quality objectives?
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Are local fish safe to eat?
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Is body contact recreation safe?
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The Los Angeles River Watershed
Monitoring Program (LARWMP) was developed during 2007 by a group of stakeholders
representing major permittees, regulatory and management agencies, and conservation
groups. The objectives of the program are to increase awareness of the importance
of issues at the watershed scale and to improve the coordination and integration
of monitoring efforts for both compliance and ambient conditions. Sampling was initiated
in 2008 and focused on Questions 1 and 3, and a portion of Question 2, with full
implementation occurring in 2009.
The goals of the monitoring program include those similar to the National Pollution
Discharge Elimination System:
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Compliance with receiving water objectives
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Trends in surface water quality
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Impacts to beneficial uses
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Health of the biological community
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Data needs for modeling contaminants of concern
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The resulting program is a multi-level
monitoring framework that combines probabilistic and targeted sampling for water
quality, toxicity, and bio-assessment and habitat condition. Patterned after the
San Gabriel River Regional Monitoring, the LARWMP incorporates local and site-specific issues within a broader watershed-scale
perspective.
The LARWMP improves overall cost effectiveness of monitoring efforts in the watershed.
The plan and program reduces redundancies within and between existing monitoring
programs, to target monitoring efforts on contaminants of concern, and to adjust
monitoring locations and sampling frequencies to better respond to management priorities
in the Los Angeles River watershed. This is addressed through a combination of existing
compliance and assessment monitoring, new monitoring efforts, and the integration
of ongoing and planned special studies in the watershed. In addition, coordination
has been undertaken with Regional efforts underway through the
Surface Water Ambient Monitoring Program (SWAMP),
Clean Rivers through Effective Stakeholder TMDLs (CREST)
and
the Stormwater Monitoring Coalition (SMC).
The LARWMP is implemented through a collaborative effort led by the Council for Watershed Health,
in cooperation with the cities of Burbank and Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Department
of Public Works, the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board, USEPA and
other stakeholders.
Annual results of the ambient assessment provide a context for evaluating water
quality and stream conditions below permitted discharge locations. Results will
also help to identify areas where expanded monitoring or special studies should
be focused. It is anticipated that this program will improve inter-agency coordination
and cost-effectiveness of disparate monitoring efforts, generate more robust monitoring
data, and serve as a framework for periodic and comprehensive assessments of watershed
condition. Results will be compiled on a five-year basis to make comprehensive watershed-wide
assessments to answer the five fundamental questions of the program.
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