LET’S KEEP THE DIRT OUTTA THE WATER

The photo shows a comparison of fresh water and a bucket of naturally occurring sediment sludge

In order for Black Fly to assist in water quality monitoring during instream works we must head to site prior to complete an initial total suspended solids (TSS) baseline. This helps develop a linear regression analysis of the relationship between TSS and nephelometric turbidity units (NTU)! Field equipment calculates the watercourses turbidity using NTU’s which is a surrogate to TSS; therefore, we must have this relationship established before construction to ensure any exceedances are caught and dealt with right away.

While on site completing the baseline, Black Fly employees fill up 25 500 ml bottles of water at slowly increased turbidity levels by mixing pails of fresh water with the naturally occurring sediment at the site, each bottle is labelled and a corresponding NTU is prescribed. After all samples have been secured, we drop them off at one of our trusty labs nearby for TSS testing and wait for the results. The photo attached shows the two buckets of fresh water and then the bucket of naturally occurring sediment sludge