By CONNIE TABBERT
Editor
COBDEN — Five summer students are working on water quality throughout the Muskrat Lake watershed through the Environmental Technician program at Algonquin College in Pembroke.
Part of this program includes doing community-based projects, said Sarah Hall, the co-ordinator of the program. With Muskrat Lake being so close, and having difficulties, the program has partnered up with the Muskrat Watershed Council (MWC) to conduct studies throughout the watershed, which includes monitoring.
While the students work on various projects during the school year, Ms. Hall said for the summer, there are five summer students courtesy of the program.
Two of the students are from the Pembroke campus, one is through an International program, and he’s from Brazil and two are from the Deep River Science Academy.
Two of the students are paid through research funding the college applied for and received, the international student is paid through a special program while two pay to participate as summer students through the science academy, she explained. There is no cost to the MWC for the summer students, she added.
The paid summer students are Krista Mayer and Alyssa Schutt are from the Pembroke campus program and Everton Spuldaro is from the Woodroffe Campus (the international program).
The science academy students are Wilson Ho and Abdullah Haroon
“One of the goals of this program is to have students actively involved in doing work in the community,” Ms. Hall said. “We established a number of different partnerships to do projects. Muskrat lake and the watershed is one area of focus for us.”
The MWC and the college have been working together for just under two years, she said. The council supported the college in securing funding for the establishment of water monitoring networks, she said.
“We jointly went in together, and we received funding through Farm and Food Care Ontario and the Growing Forward 2 Initiative, which is federal and provincial funding,” Ms. Hall said.
With this funding, the two groups are working together on monitoring Muskrat Lake and the watershed.
“Many people recognize the lake is facing some challenges with respect to too many nutrients, particularly phosphorus coming into the lake,” she said. “Part of our role is to try and gain a better understanding of where that might be coming from.”
Monitoring the watershed
There are 24 sites currently being monitored throughout the watershed, Ms. Hall said. The monitoring is going on throughout the watershed: Muskrat Lake, Lake Dore, Jeffrey-Olmstead Lake, Buttermilk Creek on Foresters Falls Road, the Snake River system, Mink Lake/Creek and some municipal drains, she said.
Ms. Hall noted there has been monitoring going on throughout the area for a number of years, by the MNR (Ministry of Natural Resources) and the MOE (Ministry of Environment), but never this extensive. There were six or seven sites monitored intermittently, while the current 24 stations are monitored quite regularly.
There are monthly water samples taken to the MOE and CNL (Canadian Nuclear Laboratories in Chalk River) for analysis. However, they are each taken two weeks apart, so there are actually bi-weekly analyzations, and they each measure different things, she explained.
In addition to that monitoring program, “which is the bread and butter of what the initiative is,” there are also a number of other smaller projects, Ms. Hall said.
“We do three sets of sampling on the lake, which consists of 46 stations,” she said.
These samplings are for measuring dissolved oxygen and temperature, she said. One sampling has been completed and there will be two, possibly three, more samplings this summer, she added.
“We are trying to understand how the lake behaves as the summer changes, where the temperatures are changing and particularly trying to understand where there might be some areas of depleted oxygen, likely in the bottom of the lake, but we’re looking for the low oxygen zones,” Ms. Hall said.
Muskrat Lake is almost 200 feet in its deepest area, but the Cobden area is the shallow end, she said.
Environmental
Technician Program
Students are in this environmental program to gain a few different skills, such as becoming proficient in learning how to use modern equipment, which was purchased through college and through research grants, Ms. Hall said. They also learn how to summarize the data, work with partners and become socially knowledgeable.
To be socially knowledgeable is being able to tell non-science people what they are doing and what the results are.
“I think conveying science information to people who don’t have a science back ground is very critical,” Ms. Hall said. “It sounds easy, but it’s not always easy to do.
“It’s a critical skill we want these students to understand.”
The final objective of this program, as in any college program, is to make them employable, she said.
The environmental technician program is a year-and-a-half in length, she said. It’s relatively new, just now entering it’s fourth year — and it has been at capacity since it was offered.
When the students are in school, they are in the watershed every week doing field stuff , such as doing measurements, collecting samples and monitoring.
There are 32 students in the program and all of them in the next semester will be somehow connected to either this lake or the watershed, doing projects related to the area, Ms. Hall said. It’s part of the curriculum, although it will not be as intense as the summer program.
“There is lots and lots of field activity,” Ms. Hall said.
Ms. Hall works with Julie Sylvestre, the college’s applied research co-ordinator, to write proposals to bring in funding to the college specifically for these projects. Applied research is a new area for the Pembroke campus, she said, adding, although there’s quite a bit done from the Ottawa campus.
“It’s an opportunity for us to bring in funding to get these things done for the community and a benefit to the students,” she said. “It’s not always easy to bring money. Last year we received $70,000 and this year $30,000, which helps pay some expenses for the students.”
Ms. Hall noted some of the funds used during the school year funds student projects and pays for basic expenses, like transportation, purchasing equipment or getting analysis done. During the school year, they are run as in-class projects, while over the summer, the students are paid.
There is also funding from the MOE, as it pays about $40,000 in analysis costs, she added.
The MWC hired a consultant to produce a report which is expected to be ready for the annual general meeting, which is in August, Ms. Hall said.
“She has a PhD in water quality and expertise in that area,” she explained. “She analyzed the first year of the monitoring results. She will interpret much of the data that has been collected.”
Ms. Hall said while students can do some interpretation, in this case, with so many partners involved, it’s best if a professional does the interpretation of the results.
The students are still learning and there are some very complex issues, she added.
“We have to really be certain, when we report to the public, that we have the best people analyzing the information,” Ms. Hall stated.
Monitoring Stations
The students are monitoring the water at the deepest point on Muskrat Lake, which is the end furthest from Cobden, Ms. Hall said.
“We do grab sampling,” she said, which means just taking a sample of the water.
However, there are also automated pieces of equipment that collect information every 15 minutes. (To prevent the possibility of vandalism, we will not publish where they are.)
The MWC also purchased a biochord system from Bishop Water Technologies in Eganville.
This is a floating raft system with fishing-line-type of material that hangs down into the water from the raft, Ms. Hall explained.
The microbes in the water attach to the lines and the theory is they are able to help remove nutrients from the water, she said. Plants are put on top of the biochord. Therefore, the plants, combined with those microbes, help pull the phosphorus out of the water and put it into the plants. The plants grow and then are harvested, she concluded.
“The biochord may be an option of being a phosphorous removal system,” Ms. Hall said. “We don’t know yet if it’s going to work. We’re doing a trial.”
Water quality information is then collected above and below where the biochord is set, she said.
The biochord has been installed on a farmer’s property in Pine Valley in partnership with MWC, she added.
