According to the Division of Sanitation, Kansas State Board of Health, no untreated domestic sewage or industrial waste is discharged into the Wakarusa River System at this time.
The Wakarusa Watershed Association is in the preliminary stages of establishing a watershed control project in the basin. Objectives of the project are the improvement of land-use practices and the construction of several headwater retention structures. Such a program should have a long-range effect on the physical and biological characteristics of the streams of the basin. With this in mind we think it important to document the nature of the present fish-fauna and to attempt a historical résumé of the fauna, based on collections made in the past sixty years.
[Illustration: FIG. 1. Map of the Wakarusa River and its principal tributaries.]
Sodium cyanide, a 110-volt (600-watt) A.C. electric shocker, and seines (6, 12, and 25 feet long, 4 to 8 feet deep having 1/4-in. mesh) were used to collect fish in 1959. All fishes were preserved and examined in the laboratory with the exception of large, common species that were identified in the field and returned to the stream.
TABLE 1. RECORD OF STREAM-FLOW, WAKARUSA RIVER 2.1 MI. S LAWRENCE, KANSAS.
============+=========+===========+=========+====== Water Year | Days | Days with | Maximum | Mean (Oct. 1 | with no | flow less | for | for to Oct. 1) | flow | than 5cfs | year | year ------------+---------+-----------+---------+------ 1951 | 0 | 0 | 22,600 | 596.0 1952 | 0 | 85 | 5,000 | 179.0 1953 | 83 | 191 | 685 | 10.2 1954 | 194 | 123 | 2,010 | 17.2 1955 | 116 | 174 | 2,630 | 22.3 1956 | 122 | 183 | 2,550 | 20.7 1957 | 141 | 84 | 11,700 | 137.0 1958 | 0 | 9 | 6,370 | 213.0 1959 | 0 | 46 | 8,000 | 184.0 ------------+---------+-----------+---------+------
The following collections were made by personnel of the State Biological Survey of Kansas in the 1890's, from 1910 to 1912, and from 1942 to 1953. These collections, all from Douglas County, are deposited in the Museum of Natural History, The University of Kansas. In the annotated list they are designated "KU":
3. "2-1/2 miles east of Twin Mounds," Rock Creek, Sec. 1, T. 14 S, R. 17 E, 1899.
6. Washington Creek, 2-3/4 mi. W and 1 mi. S Lawrence, 1946.