Water Quality

Coquitlam River

We started off at the Coquitlam River, from a glance It looked clean and had a pretty good current to it. The river had no odour and it was clear. The use of the land is for swimming, fishing, gates park, the homeless and Riverside. The riparian zone has a lot of trees, vines, grass and the ground is thick mud. It is about 20 meters long until you get to the side walk. The bank is sloping and is made out of compacted dirt with a combination of weeds and grass, the bank also has a lot of root of the trees nearby. The water moved briskly and caused my parter to be unstable and the substrate didn’t help either because it is made out of small stone that are a little slimy and the shore line is made out of gravel.

Chemical Analysis

The river had cool water temperatures witch means there is a risk for your fish having disease which is bad because we have a lot of people who come there to fish. The pH was neutral at a 6.5 which mean the pH is at an ok level, so its not as clean as your drinking water at home but it you take a sip by accident you will be ok.  The nitrate of the river is 3.33 which mean it’s in standards, if your nitrate is over standard it means there could be sewage, fertilizer, leaky cesspools and more in your river. Our nitrite level was 0.33 so it mean it is safe but if it did get higher then we could have a problem because nitrates make a bad illness called brown blood disease that carry in fish and 1 nitrites can seriously hurt babies under the age of 3 months. The hardness of the water was soft which is better then harder water. The carbonate was 20 so it means it is soft.

Invertebrates

I only found one invertebrate and it was in a puddle right beside the river. The invertebrate was a water strider and they live in still water. The water strider stays on the surface of the water and when it moves it looks like its jumping across the water.

Problems 

I think some problems about the river,  are that there are a lot of homeless people that live there and leave needles and clothes which could contaminate the river. Also I found a lot of garbage witch I think can be fix if we put a trash can down closer to where the river is.

Conclusion about the river 

Over all I think the river is clean and is a fun place to hang out and swim in, but if you want the river to stay that way leave it better then you left it.

Oxbow Pond

The Oxbow Pond had an interesting smell of sewage and chlorine. Also the water had a brown tint to it. I would say that that over all the clarity was between slightly turbid and turbid. The land is mostly use for Gates Park, homeless people, animals, path ways for walking, and for city cars. The riparian zone as lots of trees, log, brushes and thorns. The bank was very muddy and slippery it also had some pebbles mixed into the mud. There was no movement in the water, the bottom of the pond felt very squishy and hard to move in, it had a lot of logs and sticks to. The pond didn’t really have a shore line but there was a lot of leafs near the edge.

Chemical Analysis

The water temperature was cold at a 9 ,which means there is a low fish disease risk and the pond has some plant life. The pH was also neutral at a 7 which means it is at a normal range of stream water. The Nitrate was 13, that mean it is over standards and could possible have sewage, fertilizer runoff, manure runoff, car exhaust and more, that doesn’t should clean to me. The nitrite at the pond was 1, so it mean it is safe but if it did go over one, don’t fish because the fish could have diseases. The hardness of the pond was slightly hard, which mean it has a higher mineral content that the river. Last but not least is the carbonate was soft at a 24.

Invertebrates

We found a couple of invertebrates including  this invertebrate that we at first thought is was a damselfly but that creature has six legs in the front and two long legs that stick out in the back, and the damselfly has only six legs in the font of its body, also the damselfly as four wings that hang above its body .

The second invertebrates that somebody nicely let us take a photo with is some type of beetle, it has a six legs with a long narrow body and a pointy but also if you look closely you can see that the beetle might have two wings tucked in.

Problems

Some problems are that there are garbage and some items like chargers and clothes near the pond, I think that can be fix if Poco gets some works to clean it up once a week or people to volunteer and do it.

Conclusion about the pond

In conclusion I think the Oxbow pond is not that clean because the ph, nitrate, and hardness of the water was not in standards, but I think the pond is a fun place to catch bugs for science, just don’t swim in it.

Conclusion about the project 

Over all I think the project was really enjoyable, because it’s fun to do school work outside instead of being cooped up in a class room. Also I had a lot of fun finding bugs and exploring in the woods. I recommend this project to future classes.

 

 

 

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