Friends of Mill Creek

A significant facet of the Friends of Mill Creek mission is to “focus on science, be informed by data, and act on results.” In fulfillment of this mission, our Friends completed an initial round of water quality testing of Mill Creek through ACLT’s Water Quality Blitz in April 2022. 

Since 1987, the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory has been testing the tidal portions of Mill Creek, documenting variables such as dissolved oxygen, temperature, salinity, and more. The most recent report is from 2019 and can be accessed here. Because there is already extensive data on the tidal portion of the watershed from the past 30+ years, the Friends of Mill Creek felt it sufficient to cover only non-tidal waterways in the April Blitz. Additionally, because this was the first year of testing, only nitrogen (both nitrate and nitrite, represented by NO23) was accounted for. However, all of ACLT’s friends groups hope to increase the breadth of parameters and frequency of testing in coming years. 

The map below shows nitrogen results for the six non-tidal sites tested in April 2022. Three of the six sites yielded nitrogen concentrations on the upper end of the spectrum, falling in the “stressed to poor” category. As seen by the map, the three most stressed sites are all located in the same general area, in a portion of the watershed near a golf course and other heavy development. These streams all feed into Lake Lariat, however, the water exiting the lake in MC5 has low levels of nitrogen and is considered “good.”