Location: West Asheville Park

Test: Dissolved Oxygen

What We Tested And Why:

We tested the dissolved oxygen level in Rhododendron creek, before and after the pipe and the creek feeder.  We test this because a good amount of oxygen in our water is a sign that’s its healthy or clean. A lack of oxygen is a sign of severe pollution, and can lead to less aquatic life.

Acceptance Levels in a Healthy Creek:

Procedure:

1)      Fill a dissolved oxygen bottle with the water you want to test.

2)      Add magnesium sulfate (2 ml) and Alkali-Iodide-Azide (2 ml) to the bottle. Stopper on the bottle and shake carefully. Let it set until the upper half is clear, then shake again. Make sure there are no air bubbles. This should look like a brownish orange.

3)      Add 2 ml of concentrated sulfuric acid.

4)      Titrate the solution with sodium thiosulfate, and continue doing this until the solution turns completely clear.

5)      Each ml of thiosulfate used to make the solution clear, is equal to 1 mg/l of dissolved oxygen. Use the amount of thiosulfate to decide the amount of dissolved oxygen.

Water Quality : Rhododendron Creek (Before Big Pipe)

- Building construction is nearby and that is obviously polluting the creek nearby, things like debris from building the houses and household litter find its way down to the creek. Despite that, aquatic life seems to be everywhere, we found two crayfish and a bunch of minnows around the area. This observation was done before the big pipe.

Water Quality : Creek Feeder

- Along the side of this tiny area were traces of litter and their is a lunch area nearby, so this could be the cause of this pollution. In the water itself is a TON of sediment from what I’ve seen, and they seem to gather around in the relatively large parts of the little feeder. From what I can tell I see no aquatic life besides a dead worm who probably has never even been in the water until now.

Water Quality : Rhododendron Creek (After Big Pipe)

- Even though we are past the big pipe now, aquatic life is still everywhere, minnows and crayfish hide from us as we pass down the creek. A little ways down the creek and I found a big slab of concrete accompanied by a shoe, a soda can, and a ranch dressing container. Even though the construction area is fairly away, the pollution of it managed to reach here, and probably farther.

- Matthew Amos

Erin, Jaron, and Mara tested the pH of Rhododendron Creek.  pH is a measure of the acidity or basidity of water, which is important to know because pH affects the solubility and the amount of life in the water. It also affects the function of virtually all enzymes, hormones, and other proteins. A water pH less than 5 is too acidic for human consumption or supporting aquatic life, and a pH greater than 9 can dissolve organic materials.

Feeder Creek (A)
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pH strip: 5.333
Average:  5.9915; fair
pH chemical: 6.65

Rhododendron Before Pipe (B)

pH strip : 5
Average: 5.5; fair
pH chemical : 6

Rhododendron After Pipe
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pH strip: 5.666
Average: 6.2205; good
pH chemical: 6.775

Our averaged pH for the different sites is very similar, and doesn’t show enough difference to cause concern but there is room for improvment.

(NTU: Nephelometric Turbidity Units)

Feeder Creek: 5.81 NTU’s

Before Pipe Rhododendron Creek: 1.77 NTU’s

After Pipe Rhododendron Creek: 4 1/3 NTU’s

What did you test? Why?

We tested the turbidity which measures the amount of suspended materials in the water. The reason we test turbidity is because it shows you the water quality for the aquatic life and health for human consumption. Turbidity is the cloudiness of the water due to suspended materials.

What are the acceptable levels for a healthy creek?

The U.S. Government has standards for the turbidity of drinking water, it must be under 1 NTU. A healthy creek needs a relatively low turbidity. Plants need their water to have a value of fewer than 5 NTU’s to carry out photosynthesis.

What did you see?

On Friday we saw the Rhododendron creek and its feeder. We learned about the plants around the park and how they effect the creeks environment. We saw the pollution around the park and creek and ran the water through many tests to find out how healthy it was. We also learned more about the water cycle and how it works. We saw the environment around the creek and learned how its environment affected it.

Conclusion:

Only in the feeder creek was the waters average higher than 5 NTU’s which makes the water unhealthy for plants to carry out photosynthesis correctly. In the other creek before and after the pipe the turbidity was healthy but the water was not safe to drink. In our opinion the before and after pipe creeks are pretty healthy for plants, and all of the creeks were unhealthy for humans.

• Feeder Creek-

33.3 ppm’s   (Average)

• Before Pipe-

40 ppm’s   (Average)

• After Pipe-

46.6 ppm’s   (Average)
We tested the Alkalinity and many more tests of the creek. Alkalinity helps prevent drastic changes in pH and finding the alkalinity is the method of finding how acidic or basic water is. PH is the analysis of acidity in a solution which can be water or soil. In order to find the alkalinity of a river or form of water, it is possible to either test for an estimate or a an exact value, but there invovles chemicals and special arrangments in the lab. We used not the most accurate value, but the estimate, which we used test strips. After our work, we took all of our calculations and found the average of them, using the mean, still leaving it in the form of ppm’s. We did this to compare data from previous years of testing before us. Safe Alkalinity ranges from 20 ppm’s to 200 ppm’s. We tested to make sure that our water sources were not too dramatically poor to support life. We have seen an improvement and conclude that with help, it will keep improving. As a hope, we want it to become better and sustain more life. As today, the Lake Calumet region of southeast Chicago where the water can reach extraordinary alkalinity of pH 12.8. That’s comparable to caustic soda and floor strippers — far beyond known naturally occurring alkaline environment.The closest known relatives of some of the microbes are in South Africa, Greenland and the alkaline waters of Mono Lake, California. Also found in Mono Lake, a discovery that will shock u- bacteria that not only shrug off arsenic’s toxic effects, but positively thrive on it. They can even incorporate the poisonous element into their proteins and DNA, using it in place of phosphorus.

We hope that our rivers become more sustainable for life and are able to fight against our pollutional life.

Creek Observations:

In our group and as an observer, I couldn’t help but notice the cloudy and dreary weather that would bring rain. It looked as if there wouldn’t be sunshine for the rest of the day or maybe more. There was a little wind and the air, freezing for the moments, made it extremely enjoyable especially after a nice soak in the creek. Birds were alive,  as well as animals that we only noticed by flashes of brief seconds of their movement. And as for the creek, itself, it looked clean and somewhat clear. We found evidence of crawfish in the creek, but that doesn’t nessecarily tell us it was healthy.

From our observations, I must add that the characteristics of the creek don’t emphasize a certain assumption of a healthy form of water, but only a possibility. The most important observations range from the appearance, temperature, surroundings, and population of good indicators.

Field work by Chanelle, Ella, and Emma: Happy reading!

Matthew, Isabella, Naomi did temperature tests at Feeder Creek, Rhododendron Creek before pipe, and Rhododendron Creek after pipe. Most aquatic animals are cold-blooded, meaning that they take on the temperature around them. If their body  gets too hot or cold, they could die.

Feeder Creek (A) Temperature Average – 56.3 Fahrenheit

Rhododendron Creek (B) (Before Pipe) Temperature Average – 54.5 Fahrenheit

Rhododendron Creek (C) (After Pipe) Temperature Average – 55 Fahrenheit

They are different because  they are different temperatures, I think the reason this is, is because the tests were done at various areas around West Asheville Park.

Matthew, Isabella, Naomi

8:30-12:00

Creek feeder:

Average: 12.666ppm

Why are they different? The creek feeder’s Phosphate level is lower than the Rhododendron Creek’s ppm because the creek feeder does not flow into that part. Also, there are houses all around it which causes pollution. It is also in the middle of a park so lots of litter runs off into the creek feeder. There is also less life in that steam compared to the Rhododendron creek. All this affects this steams phosphate level.

Why are they similar? The Creek feeder and Rhododendron creek’s phosphate levels are somewhat similar. They both have very poor phosphate readings. This is because there is so much constructions, roads, litter, and people around both streams. It causes lots of unwanted nutrients to enter the creek and cause it to be unhealthy.

Before pipe:

Average: 15ppm

Why is it different? I think the Stream before the pipe is different from the creek feeder because it is not attached to the creek feeder and so it must be almost fully different. Also, the stream before the pipe has lots of constructions surrounding it, which causes high pollution and an unhealthy stream with unwanted nutrients. Too many nutrients cause lots of the aquatic life to die. There is also a lot of litter around the stream from runoff and the people who throw their trash in the stream. The Stream before pipe and after pipe is almost the same but the stream after the pipe also has the water from the creek feeder in it.

Why are they similar? The stream before the pipe and the stream after the pipe are very similar. The only difference is that the stream after the pipe also has the water from the creek feeder in it. This causes the quality of Rhododendron creek to be slightly mixed with the creek feeder water, but the water from the creek feeder flowing into Rhododendron creek is so little that it the ppm of the creek doesn’t change from the creek before pipe.

After pipe

Average: 15ppm

Why are they different? Rhododendron creek after the pipe is different from the creek feeder because the creek feeder mixes only slightly with the water from Rhododendron creek, causing the pph not to change. The stream after the pipe is different from the stream before the pipe because the stream after the pipe also has some water from the creek feeder. This does not change the ppm though.

Why are they similar? Rhododendron creek after the pipe is similar to the stream before the pipe because it has almost completely the same water. It is similar to the creek feeder because it has some of the water from the creek feeder in the stream after the pipe.

Before Pipe: mountain dew bottle, fish, temperature –cool, hair bow, algae, vegetation, and Cray Fish.

After Pipe: a shoe, murky from us walking through the creek, fish, sharpie, sour cream container, mud, sediment, Cray Fish, salamander, and a necklace.

Creek Feeder: clear, lot of sediment, pipe into creek, dead worm, reeds, worm, murky, action figure, temperature –cool, and sunny and shady places.

Berms are in many locations around the creeks.