Greetings to all other water sampling participants!
Our school, Michigan School for the Deaf, planned to do the water quality testing this week. However, the cold weather and snow just won't leave us alone. We haven't decided if we want to "tough it out" or postpone for a few days.
First, we can tell you a few things about our school. There are just over 100 deaf students that attend our school (K-12). We have a residential program which means that students can stay in the dorm on campus if their parents live far away. We also have a day program, which means kids from the Flint area can take the bus to and from school each day. There are six students in our high school science class that are learning about water quality.
We have decided to sample the river behind our school, Swartz Creek. This is located in the south central area of the Flint watershed. We will be conducting the following tests: dissolved oxygen, temperature, ph, phosphate, nitrate, turbidity, BOD.
According to the EPA, our watershed has become more serious in the past 10 years. We learned that a nearby creek, Thread Creek, has highly impaired water, and we became curious how that river became contaminated. Since 79% of the land in the Flint area is used for crops, we thought agricultural runoff could have been the source of contamination. However, we learned through the Flint river watershed coalition that a sewage spill had occured in Thread Creek last year. They are now interested in our fecal coliform test and want us to share the results. It will be interesting to see if last year's sewage spill in Thread Creek had an impact on our river.
We are looking forward to testing day. Enjoy!
Melissa, Tiff, Sasha, Philip, AJ, Joe and Ms. Wolbers