Water Quality Index Score: 12, Poor Let’s acknowledge that we only gathered one sample from the Tijuana Watershed in 2014. Thankfully, the Tijuana-based sewage treatment plant handles and purifies 50 million gallons of river water every day, but it can’t handle wet weather flows. So, when it rains, the operators divert the river flow without …
Water Quality Index Score: 53, Marginal If we’re going to call Los Penasquitos the average watershed example of San Diego County, we’re going to call Otay Watershed the most consistent watershed in the county. Its consistently high numbers showed: Consistently high bacteria levels – Every sample collected exceeded healthy standards for Enterococcus. Consistently high Nitrate …
Water Quality Index Score: 62, Marginal Our data in Sweetwater Watershed showed: Very low dissolved oxygen levels Usually high ammonia and phosphorus concentrations Again, another watershed indicative of extremely low water flows creating high nutrient levels and low oxygen levels — so low that the river is near depleted of oxygen for many of the …
Water Quality Index Score: 64, Marginal A few key takeaways from our Pueblo Watershed data: Chollas River sites often had very high phosphorus and ammonia Volunteers found and removed lots of trash from our sampling sites in this watershed As this watershed is home to Chollas Creek, one of San Diego’s most urban rivers, these …
Water Quality Index Score: 62, Marginal 2014 was not a good year for the San Diego River. It dropped two levels on our Water Quality Index score, moving from Good in 2013 to Marginal in 2014, and giving it the dubious honors of being the only watershed to get worse. Key data takeaways include: Commonly …
Water Quality Index Score: 76, Fair Well, here it is: the most typical, average watershed in San Diego County in terms of water quality pollution and health. Our data in this watershed did not change dramatically from the year previous, nor did it produce any intriguing results this year. It’s typical. The end point for …
Water Quality Index Score: 76, Fair Our data in San Dieguito Watershed show: Ammonia, phosphorus, and turbidity measuring at marginal on our Water Quality Index Scores Ammonia and phosphorus are nutrients. In the farm or garden, people add nutrients to encourage robust and healthy plant growth. In the water, however, nutrients are rarely beneficial. Too …
Water Quality Index Score: 72, Fair To no surprise, our 2014 data showed that: Nitrate is consistently high in upper Escondido Creek In fact, four of the five samples with the highest nitrate concentrations collected anywhere in San Diego County this year came from Escondido Creek. Because of this, our volunteers report seeing a lot …
Water Quality Index Score: 77, Fair We tracked two parameters of concern in San Luis Rey Watershed: Turbidity: Two-thirds of the turbidity samples exceeded healthy standards Levels of pH: Over half of the pH samples collected exceeded healthy standards Spoiler alert: Our volunteers saw the impacts of these poor water quality indicators play out when …
Every year, the first major rain after the dry summer season gives us an opportunity to see the complicated problem of urban runoff and its impacts to our water quality. Urban runoff is water that flows over thehard scape surfaces we fill our cities with and drains directly into our waters. Stormwater, irrigation, and other …