Project Detail

Portage Canal - 2013 (USGS # 9KH9A)

Purpose

Continued sediment sampling to bolster contaminant sampling conducted in 2004. This project will collect basic data to support the estimation of sediment thickness and sediment volumes at the Portage River Canal in Portage, Wisconsin. Specific project tasks include: 1) Determination of water depth and sediment thickness by means of poling to refusal; determination will be made either from a small boat or by wading. Up to 200 transects are planned covering approximately 10,000 lineal feet of the canal. 2) In the event that field efforts take significantly more time that anticipated, efforts will be focused on specific areas of highest priority to DNR. 3) Real-time kinematic GPS coordinates will be obtained at the top of slope, toe of slope, and water surface elevation on both banks adjacent to each transect. If storm sewers are located in the field, their top elevation and position will be determined by means of GPS. 4) Pressure transducer deployment for a short period (i.e. concurrent with the field sediment thickness field effort) could be included in this project. Deployment of a pressure transducer for a more hydrologically significant time period (for example, March-September 2014) would require a small project add-on, depending on the desired level of accuracy. 5) The data report will contain a brief summary of field methods along with tables of raw and processed field observations. At a minimum, the water depth and sediment thickness information will be converted to elevations using the surveyed water surface elevation as the vertical elevation reference. These calculated elevations will be provided electronically in the form of Excel files and ArcMAP shapefiles.