A Peer Review of the City of Lincoln, Nebraska Salt Creek Site-Specific Ammonia Water Quality Criteria

This is a summary of part of a larger project which addressed proposed ammonia effluent limits for Lincoln’s two wastewater treatment plants. The project focused on characterizing Salt Creek by quantifying the existing biological community, evaluating water quality, physical and hydrologic conditions, and evaluating the impact of ammonia discharges from the WWTPs to the biological community compared to other stressors. The portion of the project that is the focus of this report is the in situ toxicity study that modeled laboratory tests that introduce a species of fish to known levels of ammonia to determine a dose-response relationship. The in situ toxicity study results would be the basis for developing a site-specific chronic ammonia water quality criterion. WERF provided peer review for the project, which resulted in credible research results that were used to develop alternative ammonia discharge limits for the city’s WWTPs.

Originally funded as WERF project 98-WSM-2P.