Corpusfishing.com

[oldsaltyone]

At http://lighthouse.tamucc.edu/overview/146 it measures turbidity. Could someone briefly explain what turbidity is and what is the measurement, ntu.

Looks like the salinity is rising with the tide.

Thanks.

[Jay Gardner AKA snookered]

ah, good to know the MANERR station is up and working.....turbidity is the measure of suspended solids in the water, i.e. how "dirty" the water is.....like water coming out of the river typically carries a lot of sediment and is a brown color, while water 25 miles offshore is blue, and has almost no turbidity to it.......

NTU's are like nephelometric units (I think, its been a while) basically a measure of the scatter of a light beam through a sample of water.....akin to shining a flashlight through a glass jar and measuring how much light makes it through to the other side, dirty water absorbs a lot of the light, and cleaner water lets the light through.......I remember nephelometric because of the nepheloid layer offshore......dive or snorkel next to a rig out in the gulf and you'll learn quickly about the nepheloid layer at the bottom of the gulf.......

anyway, hope I didn't confuse you more!!!
have fun

[Flyfisher]

Jay Gardner AKA snookered, you are correct: "akin to shining a flashlight through a glass jar and measuring how much light makes it through to the other side". It is a different medium but it is the same principle as clapping two chalk erasers together in a dark room and shining a light through the particles.

Ray

[Jay Gardner AKA snookered]

glad you found TCOON and the lighthouse.tamucc.edu site, oldsaltyone......lots of great information there, stations all over the coast.....many have wind speed, direction, etc... salinities are fun to look at as well......on the main page of the lighthouse site is an option for the Nueces Bay Salinity stations (SALT project, I used to work on for DNR).....you can see the mixing of fresh and salt water making a beautiful gradient right now......salt5 (just below labonte park) is flat-lined at 0, which means totally fresh water.....salt1 (out in the middle of nueces bay) is running at a few ppt's.....it is that mixing and gradient of fresh and salt water that makes those waters so productive......

the turbidities of course increase when the river flows out with a lot of sediment.......you must realize that the turbidity meters typically foul within a couple of days, artificially raising the turbidity readings........so expect them to spike and not really give good data......then the meter gets changed (about every week or two, depending on conditions) and will read true......graph the data and look at the trends, realizing its hard to correlate them to true turbidity readings because of field limitations and changing the probes out.....

you can do a query and have the program graph all kinds of stuff and look at trends......really awesome tool, glad you're looking at it......
have fun

[oldsaltyone]

Jay, I've followed the stations for quite a few years. Extremely valuable info indeed.

Come on, throw us folks up the coast a bone. Replace the East Matagorda Old Gulf Cut station. Please.

[Jay Gardner AKA snookered]

glad to hear it oldsaltyone.....although I don't work there anymore, I will definitely send your suggestion to the right person......
have fun....
jay

[Jay Gardner AKA snookered]

Oldsaltyone, here is your answer from the DNR (Mr. John Adams);

> jay, i would love to reinstall that station, but the sponsors (those who
> are footing the bills) do not need that station. you can tell you friend
> that if he will get a group together to put pressure on the TGLO, assets
> division , lanell aston is in charge of the TCOON network at tglo. your
> friend needs to garner support from local and county leaders, fishing
> guides, commercial marine interests, barge operators, bait camps,,,,,,,you
> get the picture. organize these folks to get their state rep to push for
> it to the tglo, or the texas water development board, and it will very
> likely get rebuilt.
> cost for reinstall, new platform, survey, equipment, labor, database
> management, etc., will be around $30k. annual costs are about $8k-$10k
> afterwards.
>
> let you folks know that they can call me and i will help with suggestions
> on who to contact, etc.
> thanks jay, take it easy,
> jsa
> "I adhere to 'O'Tools Rule', which is:
> Murphey was an optimist!"
>
> John S. Adams
> Research Specialist
> Division of Nearshore Research
> Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi
> NRC, Suite 3400
> 6300 Ocean Drive
> Corpus Christi, Texas 78412
> 361.825.5759 office
> 361.549.3186 mobile
> 361.825.5704 fax

[oldsaltyone]

Thanks again, Jay. Sounds like a job for Matagorda Bays CCA Chapter.

[Jay Gardner AKA snookered]

there ya go oldsaltyone, that would be a great first step.....I wish you good luck in your adventure!!