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The Use of Selected Water Quality Parameters to Identify Fecal Coliform Sources in Support of the Sinking Creek Total Maximum Daily Load.

Sinking Creek, located in upper east Tennessee, is on the 303(d) list for not meeting minimum water quality standards for recreation. A Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) for fecal coliforms was developed. The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of water quality parameters to identify areas that contribute to the fecal coliform loading. Concentrations of nitrate-N, orthophosphates, BOD, alkalinity, hardness, and optical brighteners (OB) were monitored at fourteen stations monthly for one year. Site 3 (agricultural region) exhibited the highest average nitrate-N loadings (627.34 mg/sec) and orthophosphate (as PO43-) loadings (84.83 mg/sec). Alkalinity loadings ranged from 10.00 mg as CaCO3/sec to 163,500.00 mgCaCO3/sec. Hardness loadings ranged from 2.00 mg as CaCO3/sec to 96,200.00 mgCaCO3/sec. The agricultural sites exhibited higher loadings for all water quality parameters measured (except OB) than the urban and forest areas. Nutrient loadings appeared to be related to agricultural land use patterns.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:ETSU/oai:dc.etsu.edu:etd-1964
Date13 December 2003
CreatorsFloresguerra, Susana Maria
PublisherDigital Commons @ East Tennessee State University
Source SetsEast Tennessee State University
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
SourceElectronic Theses and Dissertations
RightsCopyright by the authors.

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