Results From Our Water Quality Study Last week

(Editor's Note: This same Water Quality Study was done this fall in a different part of the same stream by the same group of homeschoolers. The water quality was not as good as here. No macroInvertabrates were even found.)

"Below are the results I sent in. From my intrepretation of the results, this stream is in excellent condition, I will let you know if I hear differently."

Date: Wednesday April 28, 2010
Time: 12:30 PM to 2:30 PM
Air Temperature: 63 degrees
Weather: Sunny no clouds

Fecal coliform:
We only have purple colonies (there can be purple, green and blue)
We have 19 purple colonies which indicates excellent

All of the quick coliform tests (from the younger kids kit) turned mt dew color/foamy yellow-green.

MacroInvertabrate Study:
Group A:
Water Penny Larva (a)--found 3
other snails (a)--found 1
Group B:
damselfly nymphs (a)--found 3
dragonfly nymphs (b)--found 11
sowbugs (a)--found 3
Group C:
aquatic worms (a)--found 2
The kids also found a frog and 2 salamanders which I know aren't on the sheet, but I know they are an indicator of water health. We also found tons of snail and salamander eggs.

Water Temperature:
Temperature (group 1): 12-12=0
Temperature (group 2): 14-12=2
Temperature (group 3): 10-10=0
Official average temperature change: less than 1 = excellent

Biochemical Dissolved Oxygen:
Three groups had a result of 0
Two groups had a result of 2
Overall BOD: less than 2 = excellent

PH:
Three groups had a result of 7
Two groups had a result of 8
Overall average is 7.4 = excellent

Total Phosphate:
All 5 groups got a result of 2 = good.... we had a hard time interpretting this result as it looked more yellow than pink....we went with 2, since it wasn't clear.

Turbidity:
All 5 groups got a result of 0 = excellent

Nitrates:
3 groups have 0
2 groups have 2.5
Average would be 1.0 =excellent