Physical, Chemical, and Biological Data for Detailed Study of Irrigation 
Drainage in the Klamath Basin, California and Oregon, 1990-92

Dorene E. MacCoy

Abstract

	Physical, chemical, and biological data were collected between 
1990 and 1992 as part of a detailed study by the U.S. Department of the 
Interior of the effects of irrigation drainage on aquatic resources in the 
Klamath Basin of California and Oregon. Most of the sites for data 
collection were in and around the upper and lower sump of Tule Lake, in Tule 
Lake National Wildlife Refuge, and along major drains in Lower Klamath 
National Wildlife Refuge.

	The physical and chemical data consist of particle-size 
determinations and concentrations of carbon, arsenic, mercury, and 
chlorophenoxy acid, organochlorine, organophosphate, and carbamate 
pesticides in bottom sediment; and concentrations of organophosphate, 
carbamate and pyrethroid pesticides, major and trace inorganic constituents, 
nitrogen, phosphorus, and organic carbon in water. Continuous dissolved 
oxygen, pH, specific conductance, and temperature data from selected sites 
in 1991 and 1992 are presented in graphical form to summarize the diel water-
quality conditions. The biological data consist of concentrations of inorganic 
constituents and organochlorine pesticides in tissue, invertebrate and fish 
surveys, fish health surveys, frog call surveys, eggshell thickness of avian 
eggs, and in-situ and laboratory toxicity bioassay data collected in 1991 
and 1992 using aquatic bacteria, plants, invertebrates, fish, frog, and bird 
species as test organisms.