Water Quality on the Saskatchewan River, the Pas Region, Manitoba: Potential Influences on Water Quality from the Carrot River
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.
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