Tasked by the Clean Water Act to restore and maintain the integrity of their waters, state and local governments must develop systems for assessing the health of the streams within their borders. They quickly find that one size does not fit all when it comes to sampling. Rapid Bioassessment of Stream Health examines the sampling techniques, laboratory methods, and data analysis necessary to create a protocol for analyzing the health of streams, using rapid bioassessment techniques. The editors explore how to determine reference streams in each ecoregion and subecoregion with specific indices of health. They provide field methods for monitoring and sampling invertebrates and laboratory methods for subsampling. The work focuses on the application of the EPA's Rapid Bioassessment Protocol (RBP) but suggests various techniques that can be used to improve sampling protocols and quality control, where necessary. It also includes general listings of health classifications, appendices of more than 300 streams that have been sampled, and a GIS method for designating the reference condition for purposes of comparison in each ecological unit. Although the EPA's RBP Manual is considered to be the standard of information on the types of metrics that can be used, this book explores, from a state regulatory standpoint, the practical development of such a system to begin compliance with critical sections of the Clean Water Act. A compendium of information about prioritizing those streams and small rivers requiring analysis, this book contains guidelines on the assessment of streams in a particular ecoregion and sampling streams that are at least impaired as points of comparison. It supplies guidance for the production of other rapid bioassessment tools customized to various ecoregions and subecoregions.

Two men. Two trucks. Two Americas. Follow journalist John Olson in fall 2009 as he recreated John Steinbeck's iconic 1960 "Travels With Charley" journey in a GMC truck camper: * Ride shotgun with Olson for 80 days, 12,673 miles, through 34 states. * Meet the zany characters at the midnight parking lots of Walmart. * Feel the tension as Olson comes within a second of dying on a lonesome Louisiana road. * Pick up a hitchhiker in Arizona thumbing his way to Egypt. * Joke with convicts, eat with the homeless, and chase a moose in backwoods Maine. * Go berserk in the boroughs of New York City searching for Yankee Stadium. * Find what Alice Cooper, Carl Bernstein, Mae West and Willie Nelson have in common. In September 1960, writer John Steinbeck, left Sag Harbor, Long Island, in a GMC truck camper, and later wrote "Travels With Charley: In Search of America." He wanted to save his sanity and prove his manhood. In September 2009, writer John Olson, stared into his mortality as well, and started driving down Steinbeck's long road - also in a GMC truck camper. Both men took 11 weeks on the trek obsessed with circling the United States. Comparing and contrasting Steinbeck's 1960 Great American Road Trip with America five decades later, Olson ponders the question Steinbeck faced: What are Joe Average Americans like today? Find out for yourself - Down John's Road.

Tasked by the Clean Water Act to restore and maintain the integrity of their waters, state and local governments must develop systems for assessing the health of the streams within their borders. They quickly find that one size does not fit all when it comes to sampling. Rapid Bioassessment of Stream Health examines the sampling techniques, laboratory methods, and data analysis necessary to create a protocol for analyzing the health of streams, using rapid bioassessment techniques. The editors explore how to determine reference streams in each ecoregion and subecoregion with specific indices of health. They provide field methods for monitoring and sampling invertebrates and laboratory methods for subsampling. The work focuses on the application of the EPA's Rapid Bioassessment Protocol (RBP) but suggests various techniques that can be used to improve sampling protocols and quality control, where necessary. It also includes general listings of health classifications, appendices of more than 300 streams that have been sampled, and a GIS method for designating the reference condition for purposes of comparison in each ecological unit. Although the EPA's RBP Manual is considered to be the standard of information on the types of metrics that can be used, this book explores, from a state regulatory standpoint, the practical development of such a system to begin compliance with critical sections of the Clean Water Act. A compendium of information about prioritizing those streams and small rivers requiring analysis, this book contains guidelines on the assessment of streams in a particular ecoregion and sampling streams that are at least impaired as points of comparison. It supplies guidance for the production of other rapid bioassessment tools customized to various ecoregions and subecoregions.