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Communication at the NABS Annual meeting, Keystone, 2000
(398) PHOSPHORUS DYNAMICS IN A DEVELOPED WATERSHED.
J.B. Pollock and J.L. Meyer. Institute of Ecology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602
Big Creek, a tributary of the Chattahoochee River, drains two rapidly growing suburbs of metropolitan
Atlanta, GA. Big Creek also receives effluent from a poultry processing plant (constructed in 1987). Given
the high concentrations of chloride and nutrients in the poultry plant effluent, we hypothesized that nutrient
uptake lengths could be calculated using the effluent as the release. We collected water samples above the
processing plant effluent, from the effluent pipe, directly downstream of the effluent, and at six
downstream sites over the length of the tributary (ca. 40 km). These samples were analyzed for total
phosphorus, SRP, and chloride. SRP and total phosphorus concentrations of the effluent were 22.6 and
23.3 mg/l, respectively. Concentrations of SRP at distances 0.4, 6.4, and 40.6 km downstream of the
discharge were 14.4, 3.8, and 0.3 mg/l, respectively. We used phosphorus concentrations and chloride as a
conservative tracer to determine an uptake length of 20 km (r2 = 0.976). Current concentrations of
phosphorus are higher than those measured by the USGS in the 1970s at the same sites. Any increases in
nutrient runoff resulting from suburban development are masked by the high concentrations of phosphorus
in the poultry effluent.
Presented at 1:00 PM on Wednesday, May 31, 2000 in Nutrient Dynamics
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