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Water Quality
Maintaining the quality of Prince Edward Island's water is essential to the health of Islanders, our environment, and our economy. We depend on groundwater for drinking water supplies. Our waterways provide habitat for a wide variety of fish and other aquatic species. Industries such as fisheries, aquaculture, and tourism also depend on healthy streams and rivers.
Human activity can affect water quality in a number of ways. Some of the biggest threats include:
Soil erosion and sedimentation: Heavy sediment loads can fill in ponds and cover the gravel stream bottoms that are needed for fish spawning habitat.
Agricultural chemicals: Runoff water containing agricultrual chemicals has resulted in numerous fish kills on Prince Edward Island. Most fish kills followed heavy rainfall events. Chemical pollutants not only kill fish and other aquatic animals, they can potentially harm other animals that feed on the dead fish.
Excessive nutrients (eutrophication): Large amounts of nutirents (mainly nitrates) enter streams and estuaries through surface runoff and groundwater. Eventually, these nutrients reach the lower watershed. Here, they cause an excessive growth of aquatic plant material. This can lead to a high biological oxygen demand and anoxic (lack of oxygen) conditions in estuaries. This is most severe when the aquatic plants die and break down.
Other contaminants: These can come from forestry, transportation, and development activities.
For more information on water quality, please visit the links below:
This information has been taken from website "Environment"