Response of the Delta and Estuary to a major change in wastewater nutrient loading - Livestream

April of last year, the largest wastewater treatment plant discharging waste into the Northern Sacramento San Joaquin Delta completed a >$2B upgrade to its treatment processes. This resulted in a large reduction of total nitrogen loading to the Delta and a change in the chemical form of that nitrogen from mostly ammonium to exclusively nitrate. Many researchers suggest that ammonium can be deleterious for aquatic food webs, which was a rationale for the upgrade. So what happened? We will show how nutrient species concentrations and phytoplankton abundances as well as their spatial distributions in the Delta compare before and after the wastewater treatment plant modifications. Although it is too early to assess if any long-term ecological changes resulted from this change, we will explore how observed differences may affect Delta and Estuary aquatic food webs.

Speaker: Brian Bergamaschi, US Geological Survey

Register at weblink to receive Zoom information

This event was originally scheduled for April 20, 2022