| Summary: | This study was conducted seasonally in four sampling stations in the discharge point of a slaughterhouse waste treatment system in Çerpeş Creek (Gönen-Balıkesir, Turkey) between August 2013 and March 2014. The aim of this study was to determine the physicochemical and biological effects of waste treatment’s effluent to the discharge point. According to the analysis results, temperature changed between 9 and 27 ºC among sampling stations that were being in the seasonal ranges. Conductivity ranged between and 578 and 3520 µs cm-1. Total suspended solids (TSS) were measured between 1.2 and 104 mg L-1 and found to have the highest values in the first station which was the discharge point. Nutrients such as nitrite+nitrate (Nox), ammonium (NH4), orthophosphate (PO4-P) and silicate (SiO2) varied among sampling stations having the values 0.0316 – 5.594 µM, 0.0001–0.0126 µM, 0.004–0.310 µM, and 2.26 – 5.02 µM, respectively. Greased oil was only analyzed during winter sampling, and found to be over the Water Pollution Control Regulation standards in all stations except the second station which was prior to the discharge point, with the values changing between 27.80 and 62.40 mg L-1. Biological (BOD) and Chemical (COD) oxygen demand values were generally higher than the pronounced values in the Water Pollution Control Regulation standards ranging between 10.42 – 514.48 mg L-1, and 19.51 – 1268.28 mg L-1, respectively. Chlorophyll-a concentration changed between 0.078 and 13.79 µg L-1 among sampling stations, seasonally. In order to determine the microbial quality of the receiving water fecal and total coliform bacteria counts were also performed. Results showed that fecal and total coliform counts varied between 520-11000 cfu/100 ml and 1100-11000 cfu/100 ml, showing a high contamination in the system. Results of the environmental parameters indicated that the water quality of the study area changed seasonally among stations, and while the first station can be referred as the “fifth order quality” which can be considered as “very polluted”, the second, third and fourth stations can be considered as “polluted” having “fourth order quality”.
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