Water Quality

Special Brennans Creek Water Quality Testing Program

Scroll down for the latest update: August 2, 2010

Although water quality in the Lake is reasonably good, there have been questions since GLPOA was formed about the algae blooms at the mouth of Brennans Creek at the west end of Golden Lake. Also mentioned are sludge deposits along the sandy shore at Harrington Road, which is close to the mouth of Brennans. Attention has focused on the Killaloe sewage treatment plant, which discharges into Brennans about one kilometre upstream of the mouth and which, according to the plant’s own reports, releases an average of 0.06 kilograms (about two ounces) of phosphorous each day into the Creek.

To investigate those concerns the water quality committee designed an intensive series of tests in Brennans Creek in the summer of 2010. Two water samples are taken, one upstream and one downstream of the treatment plant, to determine two things: first, the phosphorous concentration in the Creek compared to the Lake, and second, to see how much the plant discharge affects total phosphorous concentration. Two water samples will be taken and tested in each of the four months of the summer. The results should give us a good profile of phosphorous concentrations in Brennans Creek under various dilution conditions, and hopefully provide insights into the impact on water quality of the Killaloe sewage treatment plant.

Below are the results as of August 2, 2010, in micrograms of total phosporous (TPH) per litre of water (µg/L). We note that the TPH concentrations in Brennans are considerably higher than concentrations in the middle of the lake, which are consistently under 10µg/L. We also note that, so far, the concentrations upstream of the sewage treatment plant outflow are very close to those downstream near the mouth of the Creek. We won't draw any conclusions until the full test program is completed in September.