Lake quality parameters and standards

ejrozar · Post by **ejrozar** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 5:15 pm

Is there a standard for the parameters to measure the water quality of lakes in Montana or just in general?

deleted-71447 · Post by **deleted-71447** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 7:46 pm

Biological oxygen demand is a common parameter to measure, though there are many others, depending on the most pressing water quality issues at a particular lake. Are you working on a single lake?

ejrozar · Post by **ejrozar** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 1:27 pm

I am working on two small lakes that are right next to each other. They are privately owned and there aren't really any quality issues that I am aware of.

deleted-71447 · Post by **deleted-71447** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 12:24 pm

Is this for a science fair project, or some other assignment, or a point of general interest? Either way, the answer to your original question is in the Federal and state water quality standards.
http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/criteri ... teria.html
http://www.deq.state.mt.us/wqinfo/Stand ... dDEQ-7.pdf

There are far more parameters there than you can evaluate for a science fair project or as a passing interest. If you can tell a little more about the lakes (name, location, geographical setting, surrounding population, surrounding land uses) then I can suggest some possible starting points for evaluating the water quality. We can also search databases for existing water quality data, though that might not be available for small, privately owned lakes like these.

ejrozar · Post by **ejrozar** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 1:16 pm

Yes, this is for a science fair project. The lakes are called Twin Lakes and are located outside of Whitefish, MT. As far as I've been able to find out no work has ever been done on them so no data already exists, but I guess I don't know that for sure.
Thank you for the links, they were very helpful, and I would greatly appreciate any other information you can give me!

deleted-71447 · Post by **deleted-71447** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 8:34 am

How close to Whitefish? There are some publically available water quality data in the National Water Information System for "Twin Lakes" about 80 miles east of Whitefish, 4 miles northwest of the town of Heart Butte, MT on Heart Butte Road (also known as BIA-1).

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=48%B018'4 ... win+Lakes)

Click on "Satellite" and then zoom in to see the lakes.

Here is a little bit of water quality data for that location:
http://nwis.waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/qwd ... 0112544001

Let me know if this is the correct location, and we can go from there.