By J. Arnel Fausto, M.Sc., and Steve Black, P.Eng.,
CH2M
Gore & Storrie Limited
Golfers will be interested to learn that CH2M Gore & Storrie is conducting a biological monitoring program at one of Ontario's favourite resort golf courses, located along the meandering Nottawasaga River east of Alliston. The monitoring is taking place at the Green Briar Retirement Community and Nottawasaga Inn Convention and Recreational Facility Complex, which includes two picturesque golf courses. Well-known to most avid golfers and vacationers, the Complex has received awards as one of the top public golf facilities in North America.
As the facility continues to expand, ways to improve operations including wastewater treatment plant performance and water use reduction and reuse continue to be developed. Currently, the entire facility is serviced by the Green Briar Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP), which discharges treated effluent to the Nottawasaga River.
The Complex has embarked on a plan to spray-irrigate high-quality tertiary wastewater effluent, combined with river water, on its golf courses. Spray irrigation of effluent is an innovative and sustainable approach to sewage effluent disposal because it allows nutrients to be recycled and used by plants for biomass (i.e. new plant tissue) production.
Because of low flow and generally higher water temperatures, summer is considered a stressful time for river biota. By diluting the WWTP effluent with river water and subsequently discharging it to the golf courses during the summer, nutrient uptake by grasses will reduce the loading, particularly of phosphorus, to the Nottawasaga River. Spray irrigation may also reduce dependence on commercial fertilizers currently in use for turf management.
Since spray irrigation of effluent will reduce reliance on receiving water assimilation capability during the summer, it may also allow for increased development capacity within the Complex. Higher effluent loadings can occur during the winter and spring, when streamflows are generally higher and colder and stream biota are more tolerant.
Evaluating Water Quality
The Ontario Ministry of the Environment (MOE) has issued a Certificate of Approval to the Complex to spray-irrigate effluent in combination with river water, with the condition that an instream biological monitoring (biomonitoring) program be conducted along the Nottawasaga River beside the property. The Complex retained CG&S to develop a biomonitoring protocol aimed at evaluating the long-term and cumulative water quality impacts specific to spray irrigation with treated effluent on the golf courses.
This spring, CG&S began to collect baseline biological information from the golf courses to identify the biological conditions of the river prior to initiating spray irrigation of effluent. Benthic invertebrates (animals living in the bottom of streams) will be used as indicators of chronic water quality conditions.
The use of living organisms to monitor conditions within the environment is becoming increasingly recognized because of the sensitivity of organisms to a range of environmental conditions. Changes in their community structure and species composition over time can be used to provide an integrative index of nutrient loading and eutrophication. The sampling program will provide a biomonitoring record reflecting changes that are directly comparable on a yearly basis.
In other applications, CG&S ecologists have used biomonitoring to determine impacts downstream of sewage treatment plants, contaminant discharges, and landfill sites, and to ensure that recently built stormwater ponds and treatment wetlands are working as designed.