Introduction
The ACLT monitoring program began in April of 1998 with the support of the Chesapeake Bay Program's Citizen Monitoring Program. The goal of the program is to maintain a continuous record of water quality in Parkers Creek. By sampling twice a month, we hope to be able to detect changes in water quality that may indicate a change in the 'health' of the stream.
ACLT Board member, Ted Graham, set up the ACLT program through the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, which is funded by the Chesapeake Bay Program to provide technical and financial support for Citizen Monitoring. Twice a month, volunteers visit sites along Parkers Creek by foot or by kayak to collect samples.
We always have room for new volunteer monitors. If you're interested in helping out with sampling call the ACLT office at 410-586-1570 for more information.
Procedure
Here is how the sampling works: On the designated sampling day (generally every other Sunday), volunteers pick up sampling bottles and other equipment at Double Oak or Warriors Rest. A typical sampling trip consists of a 45-minute walk through the woods, or in the case of PC2, there is the option of an hour's kayak or canoe trip up the Creek to the sampling site. Water samples are collected, water temperature, salinity, and water clarity are measured, notes on the weather, time of day, and height of the creek are recorded, along with any other notes of interest (such as bald eagle sightings), and the volunteer returns to Double Oak or Warriors Rest to process the samples. Processing takes about 20- 30 minutes. Not a bad way to spend a morning!
The parameters that we are interested in are dissolved nutrients, total suspended solids (TSS), phytoplankton abundance (measured by chlorophyll a concentration), temperature, water clarity, and salinity. Nutrient samples are analyzed for nitrate, nitrite, ammonium, and total dissolved phosphate.
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Results
You can see the location of ACLT's sampling sites on this Map. The data from April 1998-May 2000 is displayed in these Graphs . If you look at the dates of high rainfall, you will see concurrent peaks in nutrients and TSS. Another very interesting time was when a sandbar dammed up the mouth of the creek during the drought of summer 1999. During this time period, TSS was low, but chlorophyll a and nutrient levels were high because there was no tidal action to flush out the mouth of the creek.
Discussion
Nutrient levels may fluctuate, depending on the type of soil that the creek flows through and on the nutrient levels in the soils of the watershed. Rain events can also dramatically increase nutrient levels, especially if human practices result in high nutrient concentrations entering groundwater and surface water. Likewise, rain may wash sediment into the creek, and thereby increase the concentration of suspended solids. High nutrient levels can increase the growth of phytoplankton, which are the microscopic single-celled plants that reside in the water column.
High phytoplankton concentrations and high suspended sediment loads can reduce the amount of light that reaches the submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV). SAV is made up of plants such as eel grass, wild celery, and widgeon grass that grow on the bottom and provide a nursery ground and hiding place for many juvenile fish and other animals. Just as in your vegetable garden, low light means low growth! Harmful phytoplankton may 'bloom' because of increased nutrients entering the creek - just as weeds grow well when you fertilize your garden. As phytoplankton ultimately die and decay, oxygen in the water can be used up, and then may not be available for fish and other animals.
Although we expect to see an increase in nutrients and TSS after a rain, exceptionally high suspended sediment and nutrient concentrations suggest that our land use practices are not working well enough to prevent fertilizers, wastewater, and sediment from streets, parking lots, yards, building sites, septic tanks, and farming activities from entering the stream.
We originally sampled three sites twice a month, but because of a reduction in funds to the Citizen Monitoring Program, we have since reduced our efforts to two stations. When the program was started, our three stations were: (1) at the mouth of the Parkers Creek (PC1); (2) at the site of the old Parkers Creek bridge (PC2); and (3) at the site of the old Prince Frederick Wastewater Treatment plant, which is the site proposed for the new plant (PC3).
Although our original sites included the Wastewater Treatment Plant, as plans got underway for the new plant, we found access increasingly harder to obtain. We now sample at two sites: PC2 and a new site near the wastewater treatment plant that we can access from ACLT-managed land (PC3a).
Other monitoring efforts have recently been conducted on Parkers Creek. As an intern for the Calvert County Department of Planning and Zoning, Ryan Showalter conducted a macroinvertebrate survey several years ago. The Maryland Department of Natural Resources periodically surveys Parkers Creek, along with the other streams that enter Chesapeake Bay.
Sarah Brownlee, a middle school student in the Calvert County School system and daughter of ACLT monitoring volunteer David Brownlee, conducted her 1999 Science Fair project in conjunction with ACLT's monitoring program. She won highest acclaim and traveled to the Regional Science Fair to present her results. There, she captured first place in Environmental Science.
Comparison to Other Water Monitoring Programs
It is important to note that the ACLT sampling program is fundamentally different from any program required to monitor conditions at an industrial site such as the proposed wastewater treatment plant. The program required for that site by the State of Maryland includes several types of monitoring.
First, the county is required to monitor the treated effluent before it is discharged via spray irrigation to the land. The effluent is monitored for BOD (biological oxygen demand), suspended solids, pH, fecal coliform and flow volume.
Second, the county is required to install 10 monitoring wells in locations around the perimeter of the property to monitor groundwater. For a year prior to operating the treatment plant, the county is required to monitor the background quality of the groundwater. After startup, the county is required to continue this groundwater monitoring throughout the operation of the plant. Samples are required to be analyzed for nitrates, pH, total phosphates, total dissolved solids, chlorides, fecal coliforms and total Kjeldahl nitrogen (which is the total nitrogen in form of ammonia and in organic material).
Third, the county is required to conduct its own surface water quality monitoring (similar to the kind of monitoring ACLT is performing) at three stations in Parkers Creek. Sampling frequency and parameters for surface water quality monitoring are the same as is required for the groundwater quality monitoring.
After the public hearing on the State discharge permit, a condition was added to impose a more stringent limit on the total nitrogen concentration as determined by sampling the groundwater monitoring wells and to require more frequent sampling at two of the wells. In order to meet this more stringent requirement, substantial modifications were required to the design of the plant.
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