UPEI researcher, Cavendish Farms team up to improve health of Malpeque waterway

A UPEI researcher is partnering with Cavendish Farms for a study with hopes to improve the health of the Barbara Weit waterway in Malpeque.

Mike van den Heuvel, the director of the Canadian Rivers Institute at UPEI, is doing the work through a federal grant used for research partnerships with industry.

Van den Heuvel says they are measuring nitrogen and phosphorous levels at up to eight entry points into the waterway. Possible sources are leaching of nitrates from farm fields into groundwater, treated sewage from the town of Kensington, and treated wastewater from Cavendish, he said.

"You've got to sort of identify your targets first in terms of where you need to improve," Van den Heuvel said.

'Initial identification'

"For example, if Kensington sewage treatment is only putting in one per cent of the nutrients in the whole system well then that's probably not something we have to focus on because we're not going to do much improvement there. So it's initial identification of where the nutrients are coming from as the first part of the study."

The data will be analyzed over the winter and the findings are expected to be released by the summer.

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