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Assessment of Sediment Quality and Sources in the North Saskatchewan River and Its Tributaries

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Assessment of Sediment Quality and Sources in the North Saskatchewan River and Its Tributaries ASSESSMENT OF SEDIMENT QUALITY AND SOURCES IN THE NORTH SASKATCHEWAN RIVER AND ITS TRIBUTARIES Prepared for Alberta Environment and Water March 23, 2012 by Dr Micheal Stone Department of Geography and Environmental Management University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1 [email protected] Dr Adrian Collins Principal Scientist Head of Water Quality Science ADAS UK Ltd. Environment Group Woodthorne Wergs Road Wolverhampton WV6 8TQ UK [email protected] Executive Summary Alberta Environment has identified water quality in the North Saskatchewan River (NSR) as a major issue to be addressed in the North Saskatchewan Regional Plan (NSRP). Knowledge of the source, transport and fate of sediment-associated contaminants in this watershed is fundamental to understanding and managing anthropogenic impacts on water quality and related ecosystem services. This report presents the results of a sediment quality and source assessment study conducted for Alberta Environment and Water to provide information regarding the following two research questions; 1) What are the physical (grain size distribution), geochemical (mineralogy, major element composition) and contaminant (trace metals, PAH) characteristics of sediment in the North Saskatchewan River and its tributaries? 2) What are the key spatial sources of sediment in the NSR? Summary of findings: 1. NSR and tributary sediments consist of varying concentrations of silicates (quartz), feldspars (albite, microcline), micaceous phyllo-silicates (chlorite, muscovite), carbonates (dolomite, calcite), clay minerals (smectite) and amorphous groups. 2. NSR sediments consist mainly of SiO2, Al2O3, CaO and Fe2O3. The relative proportions of mineralogical properties and major element composition vary as a function of the regional and local geology, predominant soil types and differenetial weathering rates in the sediment source areas. 3. Chromium and nickel exceeded the consensus based threshold effect concentration (TEC) by 28% and 20% of the NSR and tributary samples analyzed, respectively. Contrary to the results of previous studies on the distribution of metals in the NSR metal which report that metal concentrations increase downstream, no downstream increases in metal levels were observed in the present study. Metal speciation data indicate that the majority of Cr is bound to the largely non-bioavailable silicate phase and may represent a natural geological source. 4. PAHs are present in the NSR sediment but at concentrations well below the consensus based threshold effect condition for the congeners evaluated in this study. There was no downstream increase in PAH levels. With the exception of samples at the Drayton Valley Bridge and the Baptiste River near the mouth, the data suggests that PAHs are predominantly of pyrolytic rather than petrogenic origin. i 5. Sediment pressures continue to represent cause for concern with respect to the ecological vitality and amenity value of riverine systems, including those in Canada. Given that the sources of fine-grained sediment are typically diffuse in nature, it is essential to adopt a catchment-wide perspective to corresponding management strategies and sediment source tracing procedures have proved useful in assisting such planning. Against this context, the work in the NSR provided an opportunity for further application and testing of a recently refined statistical procedure for sediment source discrimination with composite fingerprints. The revised statistical verification of composite signatures was combined with numerical mass balance modeling using recent refinements including a range of tracer weightings, both local and GA optimization and diagnostic uncertainty analysis. Comparison of the local and GA optimization outputs increased confidence in the latter and the goodness-of-fit for the predicted spatial source contributions using the optimum composite signatures selected from the revised statistical testing ranged from 0.95 – 0.97. Overall relative frequency-weighted average median spatial source contributions were estimated to be 11% (Vermilion River), 19% (Sturgeon River), 6% (Brazeau River), 12% (Baptiste River), 11% (Nordegg River), 14% (Clearwater River), 15% (Ram River), 4% (Bighorn River), 4% (Cline River) and 4% (Siffleur River). The study provides further evidence of the utility of sediment tracing using composite geochemical signatures for elucidating spatial sediment provenance in river systems. ii Table of Content EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ...................................................................................................... I 1. INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 1 2. METHODS ...................................................................................................................... 2 2.1. STUDY APPROACH.................................................................................................... 2 2.2. STUDY AREA DESCRIPTION ..................................................................................... 4 2.3. SAMPLE LOCATIONS................................................................................................. 4 2.4. METHODS PART 1: ANALYTICAL PROCEDURES ....................................................... 6 2.4.1. Major elements: ................................................................................................... 6 2.4.2. Mineralogy: ......................................................................................................... 6 2.4.3. Trace elements: .................................................................................................... 6 2.4.4. Hg analysis: ......................................................................................................... 7 2.4.5. Metal Fractionation: ........................................................................................... 7 2.4.6. PAHs: ................................................................................................................... 8 2.4.7. Particle size analysis, TC and TN: ...................................................................... 8 2.4.8. Sediment Quality Guidelines for Freshwater Ecosystems ................................... 9 2.5. METHODS PART 2: STATISTICAL DISCRIMINATION OF POTENTIAL TRIBUTARY SUB- CATCHMENT SPATIAL SEDIMENT SOURCES ON THE NSR .................................................... 10 2.5.1. Numerical mass balance modeling of spatial sediment source contributions on the NSR 17 3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ................................................................................... 20 3.1. PART 1 – SEDIMENT QUALITY ASSESSMENT .............................................. 20 3.1.1. Mineralogy ......................................................................................................... 20 3.1.2. Particle Size ....................................................................................................... 21 3.1.3. Major Element Composition .............................................................................. 25 3.1.4. Trace Elements .................................................................................................. 27 3.1.4.1. Total Metals .............................................................................................. 27 3.1.4.2. Metal Speciation in Sediment ................................................................... 32 3.1.5. PAHs .................................................................................................................. 34 3.1.5.1. Total PAHs ................................................................................................ 34 3.2. PART 2 – SEDIMENT SOURCE APPORTIONMENT ......................................... 39 4. CONCLUSIONS ........................................................................................................... 44 5. REFERENCES ............................................................................................................. 45 List of Tables Table 1: Sediment sampling locations on the NSR and its tributaries ........................... 5 Table 2: The results of the Lilliefors test for Normality. ............................................. 12 Table 3: Geochemical fingerprint properties passing the mass conservation test. ...... 14 Table 4: Ranked KW test results. ................................................................................ 15 Table 5: Ranked property loadings provided by the outputs of the PCA. ................... 16 Table 6: The optimum composite signatures selected using KW and PCA. ............... 17 Table 7: Mineralogy of NSR and tributary sediment (% by weight) ........................... 20 Table 8: Particle size characteristics in NSR and tributary sediment. ........................ 22 Table 9: Specific surface area and textural composition of NSR and tributary sediment ...................................................................................................................................... 23 Table 10: Major element composition in NSR and tributary sediment. ...................... 25 Table 11: Total metal concentrations in NSR sediments (µg/g) .................................. 29 Table 12: Total metal concentrations in tributary sediments (µg/g) ............................ 29 Table 13: Summary of PAHs in NSR and tributary sediment (µg/kg) ........................ 34 Table 14: The goodness-of-fit (GOF) for the mixing model
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