Clear Creek Research Paper

Running through the core of Golden, Colorado, Clear Creek plays an important role in the ecosystem of the Rocky Mountains. With this, Clear Creek acts as the habitat for many different species. In particular, trout may live in Clear Creek, and, as an indicator species, is essential in determining the health of the stream. However, there are many different aspects to analyze when evaluating if Clear Creek is a suitable environment for trout to live in, such as physical, chemical, and biological properties. While the data was gathered in the early morning (from 8:51 to 10:01 MST) and in cold temperatures (3.2 degrees Celsius and cooling to 1.5 degrees Celsius) and thus may not truly reflect the true quality of Clear Creek, as a whole, the research indicates that Clear Creek is not the most ideal location for trout to live in. To begin, the physical properties of Clear Creek are barely sufficient for trout. After scoring parameters like channel sinuosity, channel flow status, riffle-pool ratio, pool variability, channel alteration, deposition of fine materials, bank stability, bank vegetative cover, instream cover for fish, and riparian vegetation zone width, Clear Creek received a total score of 60 out of 100, with room for error due to human judgement. In …show more content…
With this, temperature, pH, electrical conductivity, total dissolved solids, dissolved oxygen, alkalinity, hardness, and metals were analyzed. The pH, dissolved oxygen, alkalinity, and hardness were each in an acceptable range for trout, but temperature was not ideal. The temperature could be due to the fact that this was an exceptionally cold morning right after a snowfall, but this would still indicate that trout would be unable to thrive in Clear Creek all year. Apart from the temperature, Clear Creek would be relatively suitable for trout, although—once again—many of these “acceptable” values were on the