Bear Creek Reservoir

Ecological health rating

The ecological health of Bear Creek Reservoir rated poor in 2011. Bear Creek has rated poor most years. The higher ratings (fair) seen in 2007and 2009 were due primarily to improved chlorophyll levels.

TVA monitors one location on Bear Creek Reservoir—the deep, still water near the dam, called the forebay—usually on a two-year cycle.

Bear Creek Reservoir Ecological Health Ratings, 1994-2011

Click chart for raw data

The table below shows the ratings for individual ecological health indicators at Bear Creek in 2011. These ratings are briefly explained in the paragraphs that follow.

Ecological Health Indicators at
Bear Creek Reservoir, 2011

Monitoring
location

Dissolved oxygen

Chlorophyll

Fish

Bottom life

Sediment

Forebay

Poor

Fair

Dissolved oxygen

As in previous years, dissolved oxygen rated poor in 2011. The lower half of the water column had low dissolved oxygen concentrations during the summer months.

Chlorophyll

Chlorophyll rated poor. Chlorophyll has rated poor on Bear Creek Reservoir each year except 2007 and 2009 when it rated fair due to lower summer average chlorophyll concentrations.

Fish

The fish community rated high-fair. Fish community scores have consistently been at the upper end of the fair-to-good range.

Bottom life

Bottom life rated low-fair because few animals were found, and most were species able to tolerate poor conditions. Bottom life typically scores at the low end of the fair range or poor.

Sediment

Sediment quality rated fair because low levels of PCBs were detected in the sediment samples. Sediment quality typically rates good on Bear Creek Reservoir.

See definitions of ecological health indicators and monitoring locations.

Fish consumption advisories

Bear Creek Reservoir - TVA maintains a program to examine contaminants in fish fillets from TVA reservoirs and their major tributary streams on a rotational basis. The data collected from this program is distributed to the state officials who are responsible for placing or removing fish tissue consumption advisories on those bodies of water. For information on advisories currently in effect for Bear Creek Reservoir, visit the Epidemiology Division of Alabama Department of Public Health’s web page. http://www.adph.org/tox/index.asp?ID=1360