Physicochemical and Microbial Assessment of Oguta Lake, Southeastern Nigeria

The ease of accessing surface water bodies has made them susceptible to contamination especially by anthropogenic activities. Oguta Lake is one of such endangered surface water bodies, which is located between latitudes 050 40' – 050 44'N and longitudes 060 46' – 060 50'E. Twenty (20) samples of water and sediments were collected over two seasons and these samples were analyzed for physicochemical and microbial parameters using standard methods. The result of the physicochemical analysis for the water and sediment samples shows that most parameters were within the WHO acceptable limits in both seasons. However, phosphate, mercury and lead, were observed to be above the acceptable limits in the water while iron, lead and phosphate were observed to be above the acceptable limit in the sediment. Microbial analysis for total coliform, faecal coliform and total bacterial count in the water and sediments were also carried out and the results show that the total coliform and total bacterial count exceeded the value of 10cfu/ml and 102 cfu/ml set by Standard Organization of Nigeria and World Health Organization respectively in most of the samples while indications of feacal contamination was observed in 50% of the analyzed water samples and feacal coliform count in 100% of the sediment samples were too few to count.