Ambient Water in the Desert

Arne Hultquist is an environmental scientist. Fascinated with the natural world he obtained four college degrees from the University of Utah, a BS in chemistry, mathematics and environmental studies and a MS in biology. He is now an older scientist and has been employed by the State of Utah for over 30 years in water quality analysis and policy. Currently he is the Watershed Coordinator for Grand and San Juan Counties.

He moved to Moab permanently in 2011 to continue his white water addiction and has never looked back. What drives his scientific passion is a naturalist’s perspective. He’s been around long enough to see landscapes and their inhabitants adapt and change. His perspective is from realizing everything we see depends on everything else in the ecosystem.

Utah Clean Water

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Moab Watersheds

Ambient water includes water from sources such as lakes, streams and springs.  While ambient water may relate to groundwater or drinking water, it is not the same. This column will cover the work of Arne Hultquist, who is responsible for testing the ambient water quality in Grand and San Juan Counties in Utah, including Mill and Pack Creeks.

Science Moab: Hello, Arne. Please introduce yourself and share about the work you’re doing.

Hultquist: My name is Arne Hultquist and my formal title is Watershed Coordinator for Grand and San Juan Counties. I’ve been in the water quality field for over 30 years

Science Moab: You are obviously very involved in testing water quality in these two counties. What does this entail? 

Hulquist: My mission is to sample ambient water quality only. The city of Moab and The Grand Water Sewer Services Agency (GWSSA) are both partners of mine. But I have nothing to do with the testing of the drinking water, and not necessarily your groundwater quality. I focus on streams, lakes, and other ambient sources like springs.

Science Moab: Why, then, test the ambient water from streams, lakes, and springs? What are you looking for?

Hulquist: The state is required by the Clean Water Act to test a portion of their waters to see if they meet their beneficial uses. The beneficial uses are a setup for whether the water itself is a potential source for drinking water, play, recreation, fisheries, or irrigation – or all of the above. 

In terms of why I am sampling water quality for the state, it’s to quantify whether or not we’re meeting those beneficial uses and attaining minimal standards. In a desert community, it is sometimes tough to meet those minimal standards. It’s a challenge to keep water below 20 degrees Centigrade, or 70 degrees Fahrenheit, in the desert. For a cold water fishery, for instance in Mill Creek above the BLM boundary, coldwater fish have had to acclimate to warmer water. 

Remember, humans are much larger animals than fish. Our drinking waters generally have less restrictive standards than the coldwater and warm water fishery standards do in terms of chronic illness and certain materials like metals. The other thing you need to remember with fish is that they don’t live in an average condition. They live in an instantaneous condition. They have to live in whatever they’re dealing with. Whereas as humans, we drink water from different sources. They all contain a variety of levels of all kinds of constituents. On average, our bodies take care of most of that. Sure, if we were to drink ammonia, we’d get sick. The point is that in terms of the minor concentrations of characteristics out there, the fish are much more susceptible to changes in those concentrations and to higher concentrations than we are.

Science Moab: What are some of the main contaminants in this ambient water that you that you find?

Hulquist: In our area, we generally have temperature as an issue, which really is a physical property, not a contaminant. The other one that is a physical property that can be an issue is dissolved oxygen. Fish are very susceptible to both of those properties. We do have issues throughout southeastern Utah with total dissolved solids. That’s the amount of solids and the amount of salt in the water. Goes along with low water flows and fairly salty soils. We do see higher total dissolved solids in southeastern Utah, than you would in more northern latitudes where waterflow is plentiful.

The only other constituent we find, which is naturally occurring, is selenium. Selenium is found in some of the soils around here, and especially Mancos Shale. In general, the higher the total dissolved solids, the higher the selenium. For humans, the consumption standard is 50 micrograms per liter. Whereas for juvenile fish, the standard is 4.7 micrograms per liter. So in terms of human consumption of those waters, the amount of selenium is nowhere near any of those levels. It’s when we look at the health of juvenile fish that we have an issue with selenium occuring in our waters.

Science Moaab: Are there any other issues with our region’s ambient water that we should be concerned about?

Hulquist: We do have an issue with the E. coli in Spanish Valley and in Moab city. Once you get into the urbanized area, E. coli levels increase due to manmade factors. The solutions to E. coli are challenging to implement. We’ve asked for help from the Utah Division of Water Quality to do a study on the source of E. coli. Things that we can do like fencing cattle and horses away from streams. We can put dog way stations throughout the county, especially by trails. This should be everyone’s concern and responsibility. Not one individual group or cause.

Science Moab: How does the Grand County ambient water compare with other towns in the Colorado Plateau? 

Hulquist: As far as drinking water goes, we have some of the best drinking water in the state – a very high quality drinking water in Spanish Valley, which includes the city of Moab. It’s better than Green River, Blanding, Bluff and Monticello. Castle Valley’s another story. Depending upon where your well is, you could either have very good drinking water or horrible drinking water that you wouldn’t even want to drink.

As far as ambient water, we are fortunate there also. Although Pack Creek does have total dissolved solids in it, it’s nowhere near as salty as some of the other creeks in the southeast region that cannot be used for irrigation. Although Pack Creek does exceed state water quality standards only 10% of the time, no one that’s using Pack Creek for irrigation is having problems with their crops.

Science Moab: Why does Moab have such excellent drinking water?

Hulquist: The GWSSA distributes culinary water that is forced from the La Sal mountains where it enters the groundwater and stays relatively uncontaminated until it is either drawn, or appears as springs in the lower Spanish Valley.