Boultham Lake - Surveying
Our team at Exo Environmental Ltd travelled north once more this month, this time to Lincoln, to complete surveying on Boultham Park Lake. Located over 100 miles from our base in Norwich, Boultham Park is a public space owned by the City of Lincoln Council since 1929 and at its centre lies the Park Lake.
In 2015 Exo was appointed by the city council to assess the water and soil quality of the lake, in order to investigate its health and any potential risk for the lakes ecology and human safety.
Using the results from the sampling campaign in 2015, the City council started the Boultham Park Lake Restoration Project, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, ERDF and the City of Lincoln Council to improve the water quality and overall health of the lake.
Our team now returned to complete a similar study to determine if and how the lakes water had changed over the past 8 years.
The sampling process involved our team gearing up in Waders with Personal Flotation Devices (PFD’s) and moving out to waste height to collect water samples. This minimised the amount of sediment in the samples kicked up from disturbing the lakebed while wading out. As well as sampling, the general nature of the lake surroundings was noted, including new features of the lake such as air valves circulating oxygenated water and brushwood fencing at the banks protecting them from erosion.
Efficiently working with good practice, our team travelled to Lincoln collected our samples and returned in 1 day. With the samples collected they were then sent to a UKAS accredited laboratory for water quality analysis, testing for characteristics like; pH, Chemical and Biological Oxygen Demand, Conductivity, and the presence of Inorganic Minerals (Phosphates/Nitrates) and Heavy Metals (Lead and Arsenic).
With the returned results, we completed a comparative analysis to the previous report and presented our findings to the City of Lincoln Council. This report will help the council structure management for the lake going forward and into the future.
If you’d like to find out more about our services or are interested in anything mentioned above, please contact us using our email enquiries@exo-env.co.uk or visit our website. You can also follow our work via our social media.