National Water Quality Day 2002 and 2003
Plymouth-wide Testing in 2002 and 2003
On National Water Quality Monitoring Day in 2002 and 2003 volunteers took bottle samples of water from some of the ponds in Plymouth. The purpose of the sampling was to assess the condition of selected ponds throughout the town. Analysis of the samples was funded by the Town of Plymouth.
Results: Spreadsheet with 2002 and 2003 data
The ponds sampled in this study are listed below.
Big Sandy
Jenny
Billington Sea
Little
Bloody
Little Herring
Boot
Little Long
Gallows
Long
Great Herring
Round
Great South
Savery
Halfway
Triangle
Island
White Island
Jakes
Note:
Nutrients - Phosphate
Six of the 19 ponds exceeded the 0.03mg/l eutrophic threshold.
The highest, Billington Sea exceeded the critical level by more than 7 times. The other 5 exceeded the eutrophic level by an average of nearly 2.5 times.
Other parameters
Four of the 19 ponds stood out from the rest with regard to 7 parameters which may be signs of road runoff problems. The ponds which stand out are Billington Sea, Fresh Pond, Jenny Pond and Micajah Pond. The parameters involved are Specific Conductance, Sodium, Calcium, Magnesium, Hardness, Alkalinity and Chloride.
See Highway, Road and Driveway Runoff section of this web site for a more comprehensive discussion of this pattern of problems in the Six Ponds area. Also, note that all 4 of the ponds mentioned above have higher levels of these 7 parameters than the worst of the ponds where the pattern was identified.
On National Water Quality Monitoring Day in 2002 and 2003 volunteers took bottle samples of water from some of the ponds in Plymouth. The purpose of the sampling was to assess the condition of selected ponds throughout the town. Analysis of the samples was funded by the Town of Plymouth.
Results: Spreadsheet with 2002 and 2003 data
The ponds sampled in this study are listed below.
Big Sandy
Jenny
Billington Sea
Little
Bloody
Little Herring
Boot
Little Long
Gallows
Long
Great Herring
Round
Great South
Savery
Halfway
Triangle
Island
White Island
Jakes
Note:
Nutrients - Phosphate
Six of the 19 ponds exceeded the 0.03mg/l eutrophic threshold.
The highest, Billington Sea exceeded the critical level by more than 7 times. The other 5 exceeded the eutrophic level by an average of nearly 2.5 times.
Other parameters
Four of the 19 ponds stood out from the rest with regard to 7 parameters which may be signs of road runoff problems. The ponds which stand out are Billington Sea, Fresh Pond, Jenny Pond and Micajah Pond. The parameters involved are Specific Conductance, Sodium, Calcium, Magnesium, Hardness, Alkalinity and Chloride.
See Highway, Road and Driveway Runoff section of this web site for a more comprehensive discussion of this pattern of problems in the Six Ponds area. Also, note that all 4 of the ponds mentioned above have higher levels of these 7 parameters than the worst of the ponds where the pattern was identified.