Water quality monitoring methods for Noons Creek salmon hatchery

The Noons Creek salmon hatchery is run by the Port Moody Ecological Society (PMES) and works to improve the salmon population in Noons Creek. For years, the hatchery volunteers have run a water quality monitoring program that utilizes field data and laboratory testing to determine the health of Noons Creek and other nearby waterways. Because the Noons Creek lab is volunteer run and a non-profit, there are limits to what can be tested on a weekly basis, and the current water monitoring methods have gone for a significant amount of time without any proper review or updates. My goal for this project is to show that the significance and accuracy of data collected by Noons Creek volunteers can be reasonably improved within the limited time and resources available by revising the current field and lab methods. I will do research examining provincial water quality guidelines and historical data from the Noons Creek lab to create water quality objectives, which will make data analysis easier for volunteers. I will also conduct my own experiments in the Noons Creek lab to compare the variability of taking one sample (which is the current method) to taking multiple readings of multiple samples to determine the accuracy of current Noons Creek lab methods. This research will allow the Noons Creek volunteers to be more confident in the data they collect, and improve the overall understanding of the health of the Noons Creek ecosystem. Poster submission was sponsored by Dr. Elinor Matheson, (Earth & Environmental Sciences Department) for course EAES 2537 and was presented at the New Westminster campus on April 12, 2023, for Student Research Days 2023.