ResilienTogether is creating a Smart Catchment using innovations in technology and practices to reduce flood risk, enhance the water environment and improve community resilience in the Pix Brook catchment.
ResilienTogether undertook water quality sampling for a nine month period at eight sites along the Pix Brook. This provided a baseline water quality for a range of determinants. This Pix Piece focuses on the Ammonia Level in the Pix Brook, what they mean and why ammonia levels are so important.
Read more about Ammonia, and its affects on the Pix Brook: Pix Brook Water Quality: Ammonia – Pix Piece #02
Ammonia is an inorganic chemical compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the formula NH3. Ammonia occurs naturally in rivers as it is primarily produced in animal urine and when organic matter decomposes. It is also discharged into rivers from sources such as treated sewage effluent and agricultural fertilisers. In higher quantities the presence of ammonia in river water is an indicator of pollution. Ammonia is harmful to fish as it affects hatching and growth rates and can poison fish.
The amount of ammonia in the Pix Brook is broadly within the “high” and “good” classification in the upper Pix and at Church End. However, the Reservoir site, downstream of the waste water treatment site (D/S waste water treatment site) and Heron Way site have a poor classification, as a result of elevated ammonia levels during the summer months. This may indicate either a source of ammonia entering the Pix between Wilbury Road and the Reservoir, or elevation of ammonia due to fish excretions within the Reservoir.
The Industrial Outfall in Letchworth has ammonia levels that classify as “bad” and this could be because untreated wastewater and slurry runoff is entering the Pix at this point. Currently, this isn’t increasing the concentration of Ammonia in the Pix downstream.