Dog River Water Quality
Our Project
This project is designed to offer data results on the health and quality of the Dog River. Finding high pollutant areas along the river will help target and neutralize harmful additive found in the river. Focusing on key demographics such as agriculture, wastewater, and town runoffs, finding the point source of where the pollutants originate from will help to the restoration of the water quality in order to preserve a healthy and thriving eco system. Studying components such as temperature, dioxygen levels, pH levels, nitrate levels, and phosphate levels, will further the research to conclude how certain species are reacting to above and below survival levels.
Project 1 - Dog River Testing
For this project, we decided to test a number of locations from the origin of the Dog River to the junction of the Winooski. Starting from the top, we took our first test on Warren Mountain around where the Dog River starts. Following that, we went down tot he Northfield County Club and tested a portion of he river that runs directly through the gold course. Our initial prediction was that this test would produce numbers far from normal because of the fertilizers and high activity form the club. After testing the gold course, we went down to the Northfield Transfer Station where we conducted our third round of testing. Following the transfer station, we went down to the Berlin Fire Department where we had our fourth and fifth testes. The first set of testing was on a heavy rain day where much of the test results were skewed due to the weather. However, we decided to keep the data to analyze the rivers performance during non-normal conditions. These numbers spiked tremendously due to the heavy rain fall, almost every test result showed a completely different river. A few days after the rain fall had stopped, we returned to the fire station to gather results for that area of the river on normal conditions. These results produced were much more acceptable for our overall test results. The last location before testing at the junction of the Winooski River was downstream of the Dog River Farm. Our assumption was that we would see a spike in phosphate and nitrate levels from various fertilizers used on the fields. Contrary from our assumptions, these test results remained relatively normal compared to how the rest of the river is performing. Our final two test locations were done at the junction of the Dog River and the Winooski River. Upon arrival of the site, we noticed that there was a bridges and some industrial buildings around the junction itself. With this in mind, we decided to take one test roughly 100 yards up stream to gauge the conditions of the river before these factors came into play. Similar to the rest of the river, this first test result was fairly normal. we then took our last test underneath the bridge roughly ten yards form the actually junction of the two rivers. To our surprise, this last test result was relatively average compared to the rest of the river. While most of these test results produced safe and clean numbers, it is important to track to progression of the river and development to maintain a clean and healthy river.
Project 2 - Developing a Model
We developed a model that represents the effects of pullution on Dissolved Oxygen levels. The fish tank is divided into three sections that represent different levels of pollution and disolved oxygen. These sections were based off the DO Sag curve provided by McGraw Hill. The middle section is considered the septic zone. For the display this section was died green and had minimal life in it, a few small grass pieces. The two end sections had good DO levels and included multiple plants and even some fish. The fish have been kept in another tank to be used as stress relief in the Civil Engineering study.
Project 3 - Educating the Community
With the model constructed and testing done it was time to put our research to use and inform the public. This was accomplished through Lake Champlain Basin Program funding and organizing local high school students to learn about their community. We were able to present our model and research to these kids hands on. What really worked well was having live fish in the model to catch everyone’s eye. Being an interactive station while seeing a real-life model we passed on the knowledge of the local community’s environment. This was a great way to make the public aware and educated on the problems with the Dog River which they may have seen as just a river through their town. Hopefully after spreading the word, some will be more aware of their next move with fertilizers or littering and see how their acts can effect the natural environment they live in.