Posted by Bernd Tissler (by way of M. McKay) on Thursday, 10 December 1998, at 5:33 p.m.
>Hi Kelly and others,
>concerning to your questions:
>( I will try to answer although I organized the biology measurements.
>Carl, who will get a copy, was responsible for the chemistry)
>
>>I was wondering more about your water source. Could you tell me what
>>surrounds your water source. Such as, farmland, woodlands, industry.
>>Is sewage dumping a problem in your water source, since your BOD is so
>>high?
>
>The surrounding of our creak (Tarpenbek) is agricultural in the North
>where the source is. Our position is at the border of the town, so
>that the influence of the city is growing. You can see it on the
>satelliteimage at http://www.desy.de/~btissler/
>(What else you find is the airport of Hamburg and some streets with a
>lot of traffic in the West our environment.)
>
>That means that all the problems of pollution being washen into the
>river during times of heavy precipitation are existing.
>These are the times when the dumping and wastewater is added to the
>river, cause the pipes are not big enough to transport all of it at
>once.
>
>>What units did you test your turbidity in? JTU's or something else? It
>>seems really high in JTU's, so do you consider 109 to be normal with the
>>test you used?
>
>This is something Carl should answer !
>
>> Also, what activities occur on your water source? Do people go
>> boating, fishing, etc.?
>
>Some kids try to fish, thatīs all. The creak is to small.
>
>This situation exists since our first measurements (in 1990) and we
>started to write letters to the administration and to the press very
>early.
>In the first time it was complicated to get information from the
>government, cause they hosted it like a secret.
>Nowadays we can get all their measurements, which they get from
>automatically stations (and they take ours, cause they donīt have the
>to scientists to investigate as often as we do).
>In the meantime we got the THIRD activity of renaturation, wherefore
>the town pays a lot of money. And it seems, that the water quality
>becomes better now step by step.
>
>On December 2nd 1998, we invited people from the government,
>environmental organisations, people from the teachertraining center,
>where I am working too, and students and teachers from other schools
>in our surrounding, situated close to our watersystem, to a workshop
>called WATERFORUM.
>
>After a presentation of our work at school in the GLOBE Programm (only
>showing the hydrology part
>http://home.t-online.de/home/Carl.Bautsch/wasser.htm and the results
>of the GLOBAL WATER SAMPLING PROJECT activities
>http://k12science.ati.stevens-tech.edu/curriculum/waterproj/index.html,
>we started a discussion about cooperation.
>
>Some results:
>Next spring we will have a COMMON investigation with students,
>scientists and people from the government/administration all along the
>watersystem to produce a profile of the riverquality.
>This snapshot will be taken at the same time at all points of
>measurement.
>Students will prepare a presentation, which will be shown to the press
>and the people, who live in that area. This will be the introduction
>to a next WATERFORUM, we will have at School or in the CityHall, at
>EARTHDAY 99 (April 22th 1999).
>
>The fact that four other GLOBE Schools from other parts of Hamburg
>visited our workshop, let the idea increase to have simular checkups
>in their surrounding as well.
>That means: Not only Tarpenbek-Kollau ( Northwest), but also Wandse
>(North East) , Bille (East) and Seeve (South) are part of the program.
>In this way the mainstreams of our town running to the Alster and Elbe
>are tested by students and scientists.
>
>But up to that time we will have a lot of work.
>See you on Earthday!
>Bernd