Ok, so on one of the lakes that I fish is a water treatment plant, which has a pipe leading directly into the lake. Is that sewage being pumped into the lake? Water plant=sewage (or is their method of repurposing it good enough)

it might be gray water?  treated enough but not enough to be potable.

 

 

There is one that dumps out in the CT river in Springield Ma, this is from an article on it, name deleted.

 

"----- is in charge of a facility that sees 35 million gallons of wastewater pass through each day, with every drop going through an involved process of physical, biological and chemical treatment to make it safe to be sent into the Connecticut River."

 

I'm guessing yours is the same.

 

FWIW, I see boats out in the area fishing a lot.

It's not sewage in the sense that it's straight from the toilet. It's treated enough to be deemed safe to return to the watershed. But I probably wouldn't eat the fish anyway. If it smells I probably wouldn't even fish there. I don't even like to fish ponds in cow pastures.

Federal Law (Clean Water Act 1972 with Ammendments)

 

There's a limit to how much pollutants a treatment plant may discharge into the waters. I wouldn't drink it, but it's safe enough for fishing - though limit your intake.

It’s my understanding that the water being released must be “cleaner” than the water it is being released into.  I don’t know how they measure cleanliness.   I know there are some things they are not able to remove from waste water such as many prescription drugs that people flush down the toilet.

10 minutes ago, Tennessee Boy said:

I know there are some things they are not able to remove from waste water such as many prescription drugs that people flush down the toilet.

It’s also very difficult to remove high quantities of nitrates from the water. The city of Des Moines, Iowa currently has a very tough time treating all of the nitrates out of their city water supply. It’s actually so high that they’re considering digging a massive well instead of treating water from the Des Moines and Raccoon River, which are loaded with nitrates from agriculture operations upstream.

Interesting

No water waste treatment plant can kill virus or filter drugs that is present in the water. 

Don’t eat the fish!

Tom

I think every state has information available on specific bodies of water and specific species of fish, whether they are safe to eat. Usually there's a recommended limit to how often you should eat fish caught at a particular location. A quick search turns up this website for NJ: https://www.state.nj.us/dep/dsr/njmainfish.htm There's an interactive map there that might give you info on the lake you're talking about.

When I was a kid growing up in South Florida one of my favorite spots was the outflow canal from a water treatment plant.   Big balls of white foam would come down the canal that I assumed where from detergent.  That canal was loaded with bass.  Florida banned phosphates some years ago and you don't see much of that anymore.  Back in the 40s and 50s the City of Winter Garden was pumping raw sewage into Lake Apopka and it was known as a great bass lake.   The lake ecology eventually crashed and it's taken 70 years and hundreds of millions to get a bass to live in it.  I don't worry about eating bass, I release them so I can catch them again.  

This was always a good place to fish on this reservoir. Warmer water incoming from a treatment plant. This little piece of open water kept me sane during ice-over. I do NOT deal well with iced over lakes and ponds. 

3 hours ago, LrgmouthShad said:

This was always a good place to fish on this reservoir. Warmer water incoming from a treatment plant. This little piece of open water kept me sane during ice-over. I do NOT deal well with iced over lakes and ponds. 

Ahhhh i didnt even think of that. I assume the warm water isnt the best spot to fish when its summer though? And this lake definitely does have some good bass in it, i have not had any days on this lake where i catch big numbers, yet, but when i go i usually catch a decent bass. There are also tons of bait fish and i have noticed baby catfish and bass swimming around, so there should he healthy breeding populations in the lake

One of my fav bank spots is an old dump site, that was on the super fund list in the early 80.      It still has catch and release signs everywhere, because your crazy if you were to eat those fish.  One large mountain has no liner under it.  Bass look great, even with the glow in the dark!  Lol

1 hour ago, geo g said:

One of my fav bank spots is an old dump site, that was on the super fund list in the early 80.      It still has catch and release signs everywhere, because your crazy if you were to eat those fish.  One large mountain has no liner under it.  Bass look great, even with the glow in the dark!  Lol

Lol, yeah i wouldnt eat any, but i dont really eat freshwater fish anyways

Water treatment plant is different than sewer plant. That pipe is probably drawing water to to be treated and distributed. Sewer plants are usually located in low areas that allow gravity flow to the plant.

 

 

 

 

 

2 hours ago, steve carpenter said:

Water treatment plant is different than sewer plant. That pipe is probably drawing water to to be treated and distributed. Sewer plants are usually located in low areas that allow gravity flow to the plant.

 

 

 

 

 

Why would it take water from the lake though? Shouldnt it get enough from everyones toilets? 

11 hours ago, Gregorym38 said:

Why would it take water from the lake though? Shouldnt it get enough from everyones toilets? 

 

Water treatment plant doesn't take runoff or sewage water, that's the wastewater plant's job. Water treatment plants typically have heads at different levels in the water column of the larger body of water and take water from there. They treat it and then pump it out to the people. In the rare occurrence that they incorrectly dose or arent able to treat to drinking spec, they discard via sewage. 

 

As mentioned above, sewage will be gravity feed to a low area. Sewage plants will also have extremely strict standards as to what they can discharge (at least in Texas). Sewage water doesn't typically go back to the water plant directly even if its treated. Around here its used to water golf courses, fields, and for evap AC units for large office buildings and universities. 

I thought we were talking a waste water plant, as opposed to a drinking water treatment plant. My post a while back was in reference to a WW plant.