The environmental research plan is designed to determine the surface and subsurface effects of project operations in order to allow estimates of the environmental impacts of commercial oil shale development. As part of this plan, the aquatic biology, primarily benthic macroinvertebrates and periphyton algae, of the BX Project Area were documented to serve as baseline information prior to the operational phase. Fishes were not sampled due to the limited nature of the habitat available for successful reproduction and survival.