Rebirth of Water - 2017-2018

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Water quality monitoring is a crucial tool to determine the overall health of a watercourse for both
recreational human contact and for aquatic habitat for the many species that live or use these
watercourses. This year water quality monitoring was conducted within eight watersheds; including
the sixth year of consecutive sampling within the Marsh Creek watershed to document the impacts
of Harbour Cleanup on this urbanized watershed. Additional watersheds monitored in the 2017
field season included the Newman’s Brook, Caledonia Brook, Alder Brook, and Hazen Creek
watersheds within the City of Saint John and Taylor Brook, Salmon Creek, and Mispec River within
the Greater Saint John area.
Overall, the water quality monitoring conducted in the 2017 field season revealed that the urban
and suburban watersheds have many potential impacts that have resulted in diminished water
quality in some areas; however, they are still capable of, and do, support aquatic life. The most
notable impact to these urban watersheds is stormwater runoff, the potential for sanitary sewer
overflows being discharged into these watercourses, and riparian degradation. Stormwater runoff
can cause many issues within a watercourse including sedimentation, increased erosion, and the
washing in of pollutants and nutrients. Stormwater runoff coupled with degraded riparian areas can
further diminish water quality through increased temperature and decreased dissolved oxygen due
to lack of stream side vegetation and stream cover. That being said, all of the watersheds monitored
have areas of exemplary water quality that meet the habitat and water quality needs of aquatic
species. The variance between these areas indicates that these watersheds have the potential to
flourish as productive habitats and that demonstrable improvements can be made to restore the
degraded areas and improve stormwater runoff and filtration.
The Marsh Creek watershed is a prime example of how reducing anthropogenic impacts into a
watercourse can lead to substantial improvements in water quality. Since the completion of
Harbour Cleanup in 2014, the Marsh Creek watershed has shown improvements year after year in
terms of water quality. The dissolved oxygen concentrations have increased at all the monitoring
sites this year and surpassed the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment guideline
recommendation concentration of 6.5 mg/L on average at all the sites. Prior to the cessation of
discharging sewage into this watercourse many of the impacted sites were so low in dissolved
oxygen that it would not support any aquatic life; therefore, the improvement of this watercourse
to a point of surpassing this guideline is a great achievement. Additionally, the fecal coliform
concentration continues to decrease however, lift station overflows still likely remain an issue within
this watershed and as such only two sites were below the Health Canada guideline of an average
of 200 CFU/100 mL. The concentrations found this year continue to represent a large reduction
of fecal coliform contamination when compared to pre-Harbour Cleanup data, which has allowed
the watercourse to slowly recover and improve its overall water quality. The improvements seen in
the Marsh Creek watershed demonstrate that the efforts and costs behind Harbour Cleanup
established a pioneering example of how a community can improve the management of urban
waterways to enhance aquatic habitats and the health of its citizens.
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