Aquatic Studies at the Proposed George Parkhouse I Reservoir Site on the South Sulphur River in Northeast Texas

In 1997, the Texas Water Development Board identified George Parkhouse I on the South Sulphur River in northeast Texas as a potential reservoir site. This aquatic survey of a future reservoir site is designed to provide information about stream fish upstream and downstream of the proposed dam for instream flow assessment. In addition, this information will be used to identify fish assemblages and habitat associations in unchannelized as well as channelized and diverted waters for consideration of mitigation. Instream flow assessment is habitat oriented to determine the relationship between habitat availability and habitat utilization at different flows within a normal flow regime of the stream. The goals of this study were: 1) map, photograph, and assess habitats, 2) measure ambient water quality parameters, 3) report the abundance of fish of each species collected in each habitat at each of three sample sites upstream (unchannelized reach) and three sample sites downstream (channelized reach) of the proposed reservoir, 4) evaluate the relative health of sites using an Index of Biotic Integrity (Karr et al. 1986) that was regionalized for use in Texas streams (Linam and Kleinsasser 2002), and 5) identify instream habitats based on the relative abundance of fish sampled using an indicator species analysis (Dufrêne and Legendre 1997).