Water Quality Tests Used To Gauge Environmental Health

By Andrew Gorosko

The town, in conjunction with several private environmental groups, has taken about 25 water samples from area streams in a continuing scientific project designed to identify potential pollution or contamination problems in local bodies of water.

Rob Sibley, town deputy land use director for conservation, visited local streams on June 12, collecting water samples that will be chemically analyzed to check for potential water quality problems.

It is the third summer that the water quality testing program is being conducted. A second round of water testing for 2008 is scheduled for September.

Among the stops during the June 12 water samplings were Pond Brook at its outfall point from Taunton Lake, the Pootatuck River, the Halfway River, and Deep Brook.

Mr Sibley serves as an adviser to the Inland Wetlands Commission and the Conservation Commission. Testing on water samples taken from the streams include checks on the presence of nutrients, dissolved oxygen, nitrogen, minerals, bacteria, electrical conductivity, water temperature, and the presence of aquatic life.

Streams are checked for the presence aquatic life including mayflies, stoneflies, caddisflies, worms, leaches, and snails, among other organisms. The presence or absence of such organisms is an indicator of general water quality.

Mr Sibley said a cursory review of the June 12 water samplings shows that there has been no apparent degradation of local surface water quality since the last round of sampling, which was done last September. He said he is awaiting chemical analyses on the water samples for specific information on water quality.

George Benson, town land use director, said the water sampling test results are used by the town land use agency, the town health department, the Pootatuck Watershed Association, the Newtown Forest Association, and Trout Unlimited. The water testing project is jointly funded.

Mr Benson is an aquatic biologist by training.

Water sampling test results will provide the town and the environmental groups with a base of information for water quality monitoring, allowing scientific comparisons to be made to pinpoint problem areas. Areas that have water quality problems would be studied in greater detail.

The collective scientific data, which will have been acquired after the second round of testing later this summer, will provide the town with a good basis for the analysis of local water quality trends, Mr Benson said.

“We’ve seen pretty good [water quality] consistency, and that’s good,” Mr Benson said of the test results that have been reviewed since the program started in 2006.

The project has the overall goal of ensuring that future land development is environmentally sound.