DOE/ORO/2327 Oak Ridge Reservation Annual Site Environmental ...

Oak Ridge Reservation
Fig. 5.36. Taxonomic richness (top) and richness of the pollutionintolerant
taxa (bottom) of the benthic macroinvertebrate community in
First Creek, April sampling periods, 1987−2009. FCK = First Creek kilometer;
EPT = Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, and Trichoptera; FCK 0.8 = reference site.
introductions in much of WOC suggests that overall water quality has improved in the watershed over the
past two decades.
Generally, the fish communities in tributary sites adjacent to and downstream of ORNL outfalls
remained impacted in 2009 relative to reference streams or upstream sites, especially in Fifth Creek where
the fish community decreased from multiple species down to limited richness at very low abundances
(Fig. 5.40).
5-64 Oak Ridge National Laboratory