Quality of streams in the Red River of the North Basin, Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota
| dc.contributor.author | Tornes, Lan H. | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2019-06-04T16:52:08Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2019-06-04T16:52:08Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2004 | |
| dc.date.submitted | 2019-06-04T16:52:08Z | en |
| dc.description.abstract | This report summarizes water-quality data from streams draining the Red River of the North Basin, which is a mostly agricultural region. It primarily has crops including small grains, corn, soybeans, sugar beets, sunflowers, and hay. The Red River drains large portions of western Minnesota and eastern North Dakota. It flows north from the United States into Canada and empties into Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada. The general quality of the waters in the Red River Basin is suitable for intended uses. Occasional exceedances of criteria or standards were brief, and many occurred before present-day wastewater-treatment methods were enacted. Concentrations of major ions, including sulfate and specific conductance, have approached and occasionally exceeded water-quality standards or criteria and may continue to do so. These exceedances likely are to be expected because of baseflow that is sustained from ground-water discharge from several aquifers, some of which are known to contain high concentrations of dissolved salts that contain sulfate and other ions. These data provide a good baseline of water quality conditions, but detections of many trace elements, including lead and mercury, may have been the result of contamination during collection and processing until methods were refined. The detections recorded in databases likely will cause concern although more recent reports show that concentrations of selected trace elements in the Red River Basin generally are low. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/1993/33944 | |
| dc.language.iso | eng | en_US |
| dc.publisher | U.S. Geological Survey | en_US |
| dc.rights | open access | en_US |
| dc.subject | Quality | en_US |
| dc.subject | Stream | en_US |
| dc.subject | Red River | en_US |
| dc.subject | North Basin | en_US |
| dc.subject | Minnesota | en_US |
| dc.subject | North Dakota | en_US |
| dc.subject | South Dakota | en_US |
| dc.title | Quality of streams in the Red River of the North Basin, Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota | en_US |
| dc.type | Technical Report | en_US |