Water Treatment Plants...Effect, trout , bass

[BruceC2C]

Interested in your experience fishing upstream &/or downstream from Water Treatment Facility.

When scouting new water,
will u automatically eliminate a section of water that is within a half mile or so?

ThankYou

 

[lycoflyfisher]

Water treatment as in a drinking water facility or water treatment as in a sewage treatment plant or a treatment facility for an industrial user/ power plant.

The response could vary depending on answer to above. In some cases certain fish species may be attracted to nutrient rich effluent from sewage treatment or industrial treatment facilities of organic nature.

If there is a thermal difference of the discharge in question that may attract certain fish species throughout the year. Ie warm water discharge may attract fish in cooler months.

 

[wildtrout2]

In some cases certain fish species may be attracted to nutrient rich effluent from sewage treatment or industrial treatment facilities of organic nature.

Elkhorn Creek in West Virginia is a great example of this. I've watched videos of guys fishing this creek, and you can actually see people's toilet pipes dumping poo directly into the stream, which is loaded with wild trout. Some big ones no less. Also, you can see crazy amounts of trash that's been dumped into Elkhorn as well. Yet this stream thrives. Just a crazy situation.

 

[JeffK]

All depends. Also, in suburban streams if you avoided all treatment plants you would have no where to fish. If you check registered outfalls on many streams you would be shocked at how many there are.

Sewage treatment plants add nutrients and generally warm the water. Since most Eastern tout streams aren't short of nutrients and tend to the warm in the summer they are bad. But treatment plant outfalls are popular spots in many places in the winter when the warmer water draws fish in Also, low nutrient or AMD streams might be aided by some influx of nutrients - ie the Lackawanna is kept cool by mine drainage which is then sweetened by sewer plant water. A unique brown trout fishery. Most PA streams don't need more nutrients.

Industrial/power plants outflows can be very warm which also is generally bad, but may be good in winter. A popular late winter fishing spot on the Delaware is right at the Portland power station outflow. Not much in the summer though. Also, industrial plants can release all sorts of chemicals that don't do fish any good. If the outfall area has no weeds like the rest of the stream or something else odd it may be impacted. Plants may add chlorine to sterilize something or some chemical to kill algae of mussels on the intakes or fish don't need.

Over here in NJ many small wild trout streams are heavily impacted by storm water flows coming from developments after summer thunderstorms. The sudden influx of warm dirty water can dominate the flow in a small stream and harm any trout downstream. For these streams need to check after a thunderstorm and move upstream until the water is clearer. There are commonly clear demarcation points where a storm water input alters the water.

 

[Zipper]

An excellent reason to catch and release!

 

[pcray1231]

I know of a place on a river where an absolute hotspot is the outflow of a sewage treatment plant. For temperature reasons.

 

[Mike]

Here are some of my experiences from electrofishing or gill netting sewage treatment plant discharges of various qualities that I can specifically recall…Delaware Estuary: September: channel cat(s) caught from discharge regurgitated corn; Delaware Estuary: April: Adult Striped bass captured from discharge; Dunkard Ck, Greene Co: summer: nice size SMB captured in discharge (was not the only STP discharge where I found SMB over the years); Willow Ck, Berks Co: fall: nice size wild ST pulled from discharge; Sacony Ck: summer: very good BT population apparently unphased by addition of a batch sewage treatment discharge directly into population stronghold. Must have been good treatment system. The reason why I recall these is that we found memorable sportfish.

 

[troutbert]

I know of a place on a river where an absolute hotspot is the outflow of a sewage treatment plant. For temperature reasons.

How does that work?

I know that some sewage treatments warm the water considerably in the summer, which is not good for trout streams.

I suggested to our local sewage authority that they try a groundwater cooling system, and they said it would be too expensive. I don't think that it would be all that expensive, but the regulations do not require them to cool the effluent, so they don't spend the money to do it.

The way this might work is to pump the water uphill a little ways, inject it into the groundwater. It would flow through the groundwater and return to the stream via springs, at a substantially cooler temperature. It could be very low tech. I don't know if anyone has ever tried this.

 

[troutbert]

Not all sewage plants are created equal. Some discharge drinking water quality water. Others, not so much.

A scientist at the Stroud Water Research Center said that if he looked at samples of aquatic invertebrates taken along the length of a stream, he could tell you the location of the sewage plant discharge, by the change in the aquatic inverts.

 

[lycoflyfisher]

How does that work?

I know that some sewage treatments warm the water considerably in the summer, which is not good for trout streams.

I suggested to our local sewage authority that they try a groundwater cooling system, and they said it would be too expensive. I don't think that it would be all that expensive, but the regulations do not require them to cool the effluent, so they don't spend the money to do it.

The way this might work is to pump the water uphill a little ways, inject it into the groundwater. It would flow through the groundwater and return to the stream via springs, at a substantially cooler temperature. It could be very low tech. I don't know if anyone has ever tried this.

Troutbert, I am not sure it would be wise to inject any treated wastewater regardless of the source into groundwater. Any screw-up at the treatment plant and you could contaminate groundwater for a long time.

Also, some sewage plants treat a substantial amount of water ie Look at the Bellefonte sewage plant discharge into Spring Creek. That's a massive amount of water to to discharge over land to get natural infiltration or to inject into groundwater.

 

[jifigz]

Interested in your experience fishing upstream &/or downstream from Water Treatment Facility.

When scouting new water,
will u automatically eliminate a section of water that is within a half mile or so?

ThankYou

I couldn't care less about a sewage treatment plant and the fish around me apparently don't care either.

 

[Oregon_OwlII]

How does that work?

I know that some sewage treatments warm the water considerably in the summer, which is not good for trout streams.

I suggested to our local sewage authority that they try a groundwater cooling system, and they said it would be too expensive. I don't think that it would be all that expensive, but the regulations do not require them to cool the effluent, so they don't spend the money to do it.

The way this might work is to pump the water uphill a little ways, inject it into the groundwater. It would flow through the groundwater and return to the stream via springs, at a substantially cooler temperature. It could be very low tech. I don't know if anyone has ever tried this.

The water would also get filtered more by that approach. If and organization like TU could raise the money, would it be worth the effort?

 

[6xAdams(Jones)]

I can't speak to all STPs, but I have a high-level picture of how at least one of them works. The power plant where I work has its own sewage treatment facility which is likely to be a lot smaller than a municipal treatment plant.
1) Raw sewage enters through grinder pumps and enters a circulating trough.
2) "Digesters" (microorganisms) are added to the trough upstream of aeration agitators to keep everything alive - the resulting solution is referred to as "Mixed Liquor" (I'm not making that up).
3) After digestion, solution moves into settling tanks where water floats and sludge sinks.
4) Sludge goes to holding tanks to be trucked away (no, I don't know where).
5) The water solution runoff is treated with chlorine to kill the digesters and then sent through a sand filter.
6) Another chemical is mixed into the water to neutralize the chlorine (can't recall the name of the chemical).
7) Prior to discharge (into a body of salt water in our case), the water is chemically monitored per our EPA license to ensure the water is devoid of chemicals or other nasties. It is said that the water won't kill anyone who drinks it but I never tried.
While this doesn't change the water temperature, there isn't too much impact any more than rain water runoff. Rainwater washes other chemicals into the waterways, so that STP runoff may even be cleaner.

 

[sixfootfenwick]

I know over the years I've caught some pretty big size fish in STP discharges.
My guess is they are feeding on the abundance of something.

 

[pcray1231]

It's a water temp difference. Most of them discharge fairly warm water year round. In cooler months a lot of fish will stack off a decent discharge. Not just trout, it fits for other species too.

 

[Chaz]

they us a lot of chemicals when treating effluent and the insects are adversely impacted. they also raise the stream temperature of the receiving stream. I don't like fishing below treatment plants. Theer's a state of the art plant on a tributary of the Schuylkill River that I have fished quite often. It has ruined the brookie fishing below the plant.