Water quality monitoring of local watersheds in rural northeast Texas

CHED 1163

Elida Victoria Bonilla, elidabonilla02@hotmail.com and Darryl Mitsuo Encino, dencino586@ntcc.edu. NTCC Chemistry Club, Northeast Texas Community College, P.O. Box 1307, Mount Pleasant, TX 75456-1307
Northeast Texas Community College in Mt. Pleasant, TX has an agreement with the Municipal Water District in testing the water quality of the area's water supply. NTCC decided to test the water quality of Big Cypress Creek located on Highway 11 in Titus County and Sands Crossing located off of Highway 259 in Morris County. Every two weeks two students along with a professor go onto the two sites mentioned above and test the conductivity, pH, nitrate levels, phosphate levels, and dissolved oxygen % saturation of the water. An YSI instrument probe is used to carry out the conductivity, pH, and dissolved oxygen % saturation tests. Mantel kits are used to measure the nitrate and phosphate levels. This is all done to establish a baseline of data to facilitate the protection of the local ecosystem.