During Friends of the Santa Cruz River’s (FOSCR’s) regularly scheduled River Watch data collection during the early, calm, warm, humid, and cloudy morning of September 28th, the Santa Cruz River was not flowing at Chavez Siding Crossing (our most downstream sampling site). Therefore, no GPS/KMZ file is needed, just a couple new pictures.
However, the USGS stream gauge upstream at Tubac Bridge (0948740) registered 10.0 cubic feet per second (CFS) at the same approximate 6:30 AM time.
Nogales Wash was flowing steady, sturdy, clear but with a slight septic odor, and was reaching well into and beyond the moist but non-flowing Santa Cruz Riverbed.
The flow rate at Ruby Road was measured as 5.33 CFS. Flow data from the USGS stream gauge (09418000) farther upstream in Nogales shows 10.0 CFS at the same 7:30 AM time. A couple of new pictures and a Google Earth Pro KMZ file for the wash’s confluence with the river are provided below.
No cattle or any signs of their presence were observed. Vegetative growth on the floodplain was still waist and shoulder high. The channel bottom exhibited noticeable additional new aggradation of sediments recently deposited during August and September flooding, again providing strong evidence that Nogales Wash high flows have reached and contributed to storm runoff flows in the Santa Cruz River. Most trash seems to have been washed away during these recent high flows, but some new trash was deposited on the floodplains. Various wildlife tracks were present in the sandy bottom channel. Many mosquitoes.
Many thanks again to our hard-working Team Leader, Connie Williams, and to our entire River Watch team of certified citizen scientists who reliably and consistently devoted their time and energy to monitoring our river and our wash during this cloudy, calm, warm, humid September morning.
FOSCR is always deeply grateful to ADEQ for all their technical support, training, Citizen Scientist certifications, data quality reviews, and monitoring equipment that keep FOSCR’s River Watch team fully trained, operational and actively effective.
Great teamwork once again as always! Thanks to all for volunteering and caring.
Our next River Watch monitoring is scheduled for 8:00 AM, Tuesday, October 27th.