Water assessment Report 3: Mitigation

Introduction:

In the Coquitlam watershed, upstream and downstream have different functioning. Upstream
watershed is in the protection area, producing the drinking water for local residencies.
Downstream is located in highly urbanized areas, and water quality has been affected by
different human activities. These activities highly affect the health of human and aquatic life in
different ways by water quality pollution. Coquitlam city experiencing a higher population
growth will effectively cause the impervious surface to construct in the last 14 years. Impervious
surfaces might cause acidified precipitation that will directly follow into the watershed, raise the
pH value, and affect aquatic life. Furthermore, impervious also lead to potential pollution input
to raise stream turbidity (Uriarte et al., 2011). Increased primary production or organic matter
breakdown is also a result of urbanization, which can be boosted by a higher percentage of
impermeable surfaces and nonpoint source pollution or in-stream production, affecting dissolved
oxygen concentrations in watersheds (Melissa et al.).

In addition, the most negative effective activities are gravelling. The aggregate company began
running gravel operations in Coquitlam River in the 1950s (Decker et al, 2010). The gravel
operations in the Coquitlam River basin are still going strong (Decker et al, 2010). Thus, stream
inputs, mass wasting of glaciolacustrine deposits, and gravel mining activities all contribute to
primary sediment in the lower Coquitlam watershed (Decker et al, 2010). Fine sand, silt, and
clays made up the majority of the gravel mining material discharged into the river, resulting in
frequent turbidity occurrences (Decker et al, 2010). Heavy metals such as arsenic, cadmium,
copper, cyanide, zinc, or mercury will migrate into the watershed as a result of gravel behaviour,
lowering the PH value and harming the downstream aquatic ecology (Ferrari et al, 2009). Heavy
metals flowing into the watershed will deplete oxygen, causing the dissolved oxygen rate to rise,
posing a significant breathing difficulty for most aquatic species (Mol & Ouboter, 2004). At the
same time, heavy metals and silt will raise the watershed's turbidity level (Mol & Ouboter,
2004).
Therefore, downstream Coquitlam watershed faces many water quality problems from PH value,
turbidity, and dissolved oxygen. As the previous report mentions, from 1990 to 2012, turbidity is
under a reasonable level that does not meet goal conditions but has potential intervention from
1990 to 2003. The average PH value downstream is within acceptable limits. From 1990 to
2012, dissolved oxygen faced a significant difficulty. However, the data only indicate until 2012.
There is no recent data recording about water quality in the Coquitlam downstream watershed.
According to the research, the BC government already regulates the water pollution range of
urbanization construction and population raises adverse effects. However, the Coquitlam
watershed still faces a massive challenge on graveling activities as the mining companies are still
working on it. Moreover, the government and scientists still need to pay attention to the mining
activities' water quality pollution issues. This report will focus on mitigation the hostile effect
from human activities by policy and technologies improvements.

Policy:
As mentioned before, mining activities mainly affected Coquitlam downstream watershed water
quality. Thus, the best way to solve the water quality pollution issues is to regulate or limit
mining productions. The BC government has already published the Mines Act – Mines Fee
Regulation to limit mining. Mines fee regulations mention that the company must have a mining
or coral permit to continue its business (2021). Moreover, the company needs to follow the
statement of the maximum number of tonnes of pay dirt proposed to be moved in the highest
producing year of the permit (2021). The permit has a time limit spread from less than five years
holders and more than five years holders (2021). Different holders have different limits and
payments (2021). Table one indicates the permit fee for placer mines and production limitation
for two kinds of permit holders.
 Table 1: Demonstrate Permit Fees for Placer Mines

Mining companies also need to pay the government's mining water pollution control permits fees
(2021). BC government will use this money to solve and manage watershed pollution or quality
issues (2021). As table 2 indicates, different emissions have a different payment dependent on
the chemical emissions.

Table 2: Demonstrate Mining Water Pollution Control Permits – Active Facilities

Mines Act – Mines Fee Regulation limited mining behaviors by the finical restricted way, which
means more mining production has more payment from the mining companies. The Coquitlam
government could also highly publish Mines Act – Mines Fee Regulation because some mining
companies are not willing to pay the extra fees on their behaviors. At that time, the amount of
mining production decreases, and the adverse effects from mining activities will also decline. In
addition, not all the mining companies could get the mining or coral permits from the
government as the mining companies need pass the exam and have the standard equipment
which has lower chemical emission (2021). Then, the BC government will give them permit to
allow them to have mining business. Therefore, the Coquitlam government could use Mine Act
to regulate the local mining companies' actives to reduce heavy metal pollution emissions into
the watershed. Even though the Coquitlam government also could increase the permit fees or
water pollution treatment fees from mining companies. This extra money could be used on
watershed management, improving water quality, and investment in technical treatment.
Technical:

Besides, heavy metal from mining activities significantly affects the Coquitlam downstream
watershed. Heavy metal might cause pH value, turbidity, and dissolved oxygen increase, which
could even lead aquatic life and humans to face potential poisoning issues in the long-term
effects. Therefore, the Coquitlam government also could use bioremediation ways to solved
heavy metals problems in the watershed. For instance, rhizofiltration is one of the bioremediation
treatments to solve heavy mental issues in the water.

Rhizofiltration is absorbing, concentrating, and precipitating hazardous metals from

contaminated groundwater using plant roots (Srivastava et al, 2021). The commercialization of
rhizofiltration will be driven by economic and technical advantages such as applicability to a
wide range of heavy metals, ability to treat large volumes, reduced use of toxic chemicals,
reduced volume of secondary waste, recycling potential, and regulatory and public acceptance
(Verma et al, 2006). Heavy metal polluted water is initially given to eligible plants with stable
root systems to acclimatize the plants (Srivastava et al, 2021). These plants are then transported
to the contaminated site to gather toxins, and they are harvested once the roots have become
saturated (Srivastava et al, 2021). Aquatic species or hydroponic methods are used to grow the
plants directly in water or in water-rich materials like sand (Srivastava et al, 2021).
Rhizofiltration enables in-situ treatment, resulting in less environmental disruption (Srivastava et
al, 2021). A good plant for rhizofiltration applications can remove harmful metals from the
solution for an extended length of time by its rapid-growth root structure (Srivastava et al, 2021).
Various plant species have been discovered to successfully remove hazardous metals from
aqueous solutions, including Cu (2+), Cd (2+), Cr (6+), Ni (2+), Pb (2+) and Zn (2+) ( Srivastava
et al, 2021). Liquid streams can also be cleaned of low-level radioactive pollutants from human
mining behaviours (Srivastava et al, 2021). For instance, sunflowers on floating rafts removed
radioactive metals from water in Chernobyl ponds, and other plants removed metals from mine
waste flowing through diversion troughs (Lambert et al, 2020).

The root surface provides an excellent region for metals or pollutants to be absorbed into the root
tissues (Dushenkov et al, 1995). Rhizofiltration can be done with both aquatic and terrestrial
plants (Dushenkov et al, 1995). Water hyacinth duckweed is an example of an aquatic plant that
uses rhizofiltration, while tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum), sunflower (Helianthus annuus), spinach
(Spinacia oleracea), rye (Secale cereale), and Indian mustard are examples of terrestrial plants
that use rhizofiltration (Brassica juncea) (Dushenkov et al, 1995). Terrestrial plants could absorb
heavy metals in underground water, which will follow into the watershed (Dushenkov et al.,
1995). Terrestrial plants are popular for rhizofiltration because they have a long, fibrous root
system that grows quickly and has a large surface area (Dushenkov et al, 1995). And also,
rhizofiltration is more environmentally friendly than other chemical treatments (Lambert et al.,
2020). Rhizofiltration can solve the heavy metal problem and could be used on greenfield
construction to prevent soil erosion near the watershed area (Lambert et al., 2020). In addition,
rhizofiltration has less cost for the further adverse effects and management potential input
(Lambert et al., 2020).
References:

Decker, S., Macnair, J., & Lewis, G. (2010). Coquitlam/Buntzen Project Water Use Plan Lower
Coquitlam Fish Productivity Index–.

Dushenkov, V., Kumar, P. N., Motto, H., & Raskin, I. (1995). Rhizofiltration: the use of plants
to remove heavy metals from aqueous streams. Environmental science &
technology, 29(5), 1239-1245.

Ferrari, J. R., Lookingbill, T. R., McCormick, B., Townsend, P. A., & Eshleman, K. N. (2009).
Surface mining and reclamation effects on flood response of watersheds in the central
Appalachian Plateau region. Water Resources Research, 45(4).

Lambert, M., Leven, B. A., & Green, R. M. (2000). New methods of cleaning up heavy metal in
soils and water. Environmental science and technology briefs for citizens, 1-3.

Mines Act. Mines Fee Regulation. (2021, May). Retrieved December 5, 2021, from
https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/54_2015.

Melissa, M. G., Kaushal, S. S., Newcomer, T. A., Findlay, S. E., & Groffman, P. M. Effects of
urbanization on variability in temperature and diurnal oxygen patterns in streams.

Mol, J. H., & Ouboter, P. E. (2004). Downstream effects of erosion from small‐scale gold
mining on the instream habitat and fish community of a small neotropical rainforest
stream. Conservation Biology, 18(1), 201-214.

Srivastava, S., Anand, V., Singh, P., Roy, A., Pallavi, S., Bist, V., ... & Srivastava, S. (2021).
Microbial systems as a source of novel genes for enhanced phytoremediation of
contaminated soils. Microbe Mediated Remediation of Environmental Contaminants,
177-198.

Uriarte, M., Yackulic, C. B., Lim, Y., & Arce-Nazario, J. A. (2011). Influence of land use on
water quality in a tropical landscape: a multi-scale analysis. Landscape
ecology, 26(8), 1151–1164. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-011-9642-y

Verma, P., George, K. V., Singh, H. V., Singh, S. K., Juwarkar, A., & Singh, R. N. (2006).
Modeling rhizofiltration: heavy-metal uptake by plant roots. Environmental Modeling &
Assessment, 11(4), 387-394.