Automatic Water Quality Monitoring Within the Saint John River Basin

Automatic water quality monitoring within the Saint John River Basin was conceived in 1968, and its sponsors were the New Brunswick Government and the Water Quality Branch. Initially, it was intended to monitor one trans-boundary stream which was causing serious concern because of the indiscriminate dumping of potato processing waste by a United States processor. The number of monitors was subsequently increased to eight, and these have been located throughout the basin. The parameters being monitored at present are: temperature, dissolved oxygen, pH, conductivity, and chlorides.

The paper outlines the various problems encountered to date in operating the monitors. These include electronic difficulties, telemetry, pumps, probes, and operating under winter conditions. The various solutions that were applied to overcome the problems are also discussed.

Handling of the analytical information generated by the monitors is also outlined, together with an assessment of automatic monitoring and its future use, as viewed by the author.