Water Quality on the Saskatchewan River, the Pas Region, Manitoba: Potential Influences on Water Quality from the Carrot River
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Water quality on the Saskatchewan River, The Pas region, Manitoba: Potential influences on water quality from the Carrot River, Pasquia River, and outflow from the Tolko kraft paper mill. Sheila Atchison Supervisor: L. Gordon Goldsborough A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the Honours Thesis Course (05.4111/6) Department of Biology The University of Winnipeg 2008 Abstract The Saskatchewan River plays key roles both for the industries that rely on it and for the ecosystems that depend on it. Recently anthropogenic pressures placed on the river have raised concern as to the long term sustainability of the river as a resource. The aim of this project is to compare the amount of nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorous), sediment, and organic matter contributed by agricultural runoff and pulp and paper mill effluent to the Saskatchewan River in the region of The Pas, Manitoba, Canada. Water samples were taken on three dates; August 22nd and 27th and September 24th 2007 from transects located along the Saskatchewan River, Carrot River, Pasquia River, and outflow from the Tolko kraft paper mill. One round of sediment samples were taken on August 22nd. The results show no significant differences between samples taken in the Saskatchewan River upstream and downstream of The Pas. However, the sites do differ significantly from each other for parameters including: sediment carbonate, dissolved organic carbon, ammonia, salinity, conductivity, temperature, total nitrogen, total phosphorous, and total reactive phosphorous. This indicates that each source does contribute unique amounts of the above mentioned water quality parameters and that the lack of differences in samples above and below The Pas may be due to other factors such as dilution. Acknowledgements: I wish to thank Gord Goldsborough for guiding me along with this project and providing me with knowledge and advice. Without the support of the staff from Ducks Unlimited Canada; Dale Wrubleski, Robin Reader, and Shaun Greer none of the field work would have been possible. I would also like to thank Llwellyn Armstrong, also from Ducks Unlimited, for lending me her expertise with statistics and being so wonderfully patient. Much gratitude goes to Elise Watchorn for her assistance in the lab and field, as well as for her helpful recommendations. For all the help in the lab and the field I would like to thank Paul Ziesmann and Mark Baschuk. Thanks are also due to Nancy Loadman, Kathy Muc, and Ric Moodie for all their help and encouragement. Table of contents: Abstract..........................................................................................................i Acknowledgements…......................................................................................ii Table of Contents..........................................................................................iii List of Tables.................................................................................................v List of Figures….............................................................................................vi Introduction…..……………………………………………………………………………………………1 Hypotheses……………………………………………………………………………………….5 Methods……………………………………………………………………………………………………..7 Fieldwork……..…………………………………………………………………………………..7 Laboratory analysis……………………………………………………………………………8 Statistical analysis……………………………………………………………………………10 Results……………………………………………………………………………………………………..11 General Water Quality Parameters..…………………………………………………..11 Nutrients…………………………………………………………………………………………17 Sediment…..……………………………………………………………………………………21 Discussion…………………………………………………………………………………………………24 Before and after œ Hypothesis 1………………………………………………………..24 Tolko outflow œ Hypothesis 2………………………………………………………..….25 TSS œ Hypothesis 3………………………………………………………………………….27 Past data œ general water quality parameters…………………………………….28 Sediment………………………………………………………………………………………..29 Conclusions…………………………………………………….………………??????????B+ ferences………………………………………………??"???????"?????????B2 List of Tables Table 1. Between location comparisons of general water quality parameters for each sample round with corresponding p values……………………………………….….12 Table 2. Between location comparisons of nutrient parameters for each sample round with corresponding p values………………………………………………………………18 Table 3. Between location comparisons of sediment parameters for each sample round with corresponding p values……………………………………………….…………….22 vi List of Figures Figure 1. Drainage basin of the Saskatchewan River as well as a zoomed-in view of the study area…………………………………………………………………………………………2 Figure 2. Schematic showing how each of the 7 locations are made up of the individual sample sites that comprised the original transect…………………………….8 Figure 3. Between location comparison of mean pH, conductivity and temperature………………………………………………………………………………………………13 Figure 4. Between location comparison of mean turbidity, TSS, chlorophyll, and DOC..……………………………………………………………………………………………………….15 Figure 5. Between location comparison of mean ammonia, TRP, TN, and TP…19 Figure 6. Between location comparison of mean % organic matter and carbonate content for sediment samples……………………………………………………..23 1 ntroduction: The Saskatchewan River is an important source of industrial and domestic freshwater across the prairie provinces and is a major source of drinking water for southern Alberta and Saskatchewan (Schindler and Donahue 2005). As a result, the Saskatchewan River has hundreds of control structures, large and small, in place to harness the resource (Gan 2000). In addition to draining approximately 225, 053km× of farm land, the Saskatchewan River receives wastewater from numerous sources including sewage waste from major cities including Calgary, Edmonton, Lethbridge, Red Deer, Medicine Hat, and Saskatoon (Armstrong 2005) (Figure 1). According to the conservation group —Partners for the Saskatchewan River Basin“, the population of the watershed is 3 million people, of which 1.6 million live in major urban centers (Canadian census data 2006, P.F.S.R.B. 2008) The river also receives discharge from various industries including pulp and paper mills, oil and gas refineries, and manufacturing plants (Armstrong 2005; Schindler and Donahue 2005). Nutrient and sediment loading from agricultural runoff, municipal sewage, and industry along with loss of water from irrigation and damming has raised concern as to the long term sustainability of the river as a resource (Alberta Irrigation Projects Association 2002, Schindler and Donahue 2005). 2 Figure 1. Drainage basin of the Saskatchewan River as well as a zoomed-in view of the study area. The Saskatchewan River originates in the Rocky Mountains and stretches north-east where it drains into Lake Winnipeg. The study area for this project was focused on the Saskatchewan River in The Pas, Manitoba. Here the Carrot and Pasquia Rivers drain approximately 110 000 km2 of farmland before draining into the Saskatchewan River. Adapted from Morozova and Smith (2003). Runoff from farms can be considered as a non-point source of contaminant loading into a stream. As farm runoff enters streams, nitrogen and phosphorus from fertilizers as well as suspended particles and carbon from soil erosion are collected by drainage basins (Harker et. al 1997). It is very difficult 3 to determine the contaminant load in a stream that comes directly from farm runoff as the naturally occurring runoff of nutrients and suspended solids need to be determined first (Carpenter et al 1998). Effluent from mills can be considered a point source of contaminant loading into a stream. The addition of nutrients into streams from pulp and paper mills is a serious environmental issue, mainly because of the resulting eutrophication (Chambers et al 2006). By comparing the concentrations of chlorophyll a before and after paper mill effluent was discharged into the Athabasca River in Alberta, Scrimgeour and Chambers (2000) found that point source inputs of nitrogen and phosphorous increased the production of periphyton downstream of the mills. In addition to nutrient loading pulp and paper mills contribute suspended solids and dissolved organic matter to a stream (Lacorte et al 2003). Baseline studies of water quality parameters were done from 1967-1969 before the opening of the area‘s first paper mill in 1971 (Crowe 1973). Tolko took over operations in 1997 and continues to run the sawmill as well as produce unbleached kraft paper used for grocery bags and packaging. This process involves breaking wood chips down using a mixture of sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfide (Hewitt et al 2006). The broken-down pulp is washed several times in water, which is then separated into pulp, pulping chemicals, and waste water, also known as whitewater (Hewitt et al 2006, Lacorte et al 2003). As waste water is generated it is passed through a series of three settling tanks to 4 remove suspended solids. The water then sits for seven days in an aerated lagoon where bacteria break down the organic components, such as resin acids (Lacorte et al 2003). Tolko reuses many of the pulping chemicals and whitewater, however this closed water system tends to concentrate organic and inorganic chemicals, including nutrients and dioxins (Lacorte et al 2003) Waste is then discharged into the Saskatchewan River through four discharge canals. Nutrients, such as phosphorous, nitrogen, and carbon accumulate downstream of industrial and agricultural runoff where some is deposited as sediment, which may be used by macrophytes, and some is taken from