Period1A

Studying the Pasaic River

Our hypothesis: Our table said the river was overall dirty.

If the river and we do a series of tests then our results should prove that the river health is poor.

Observations: All of our three spots we observed were dirty because they had litter like cigarettes and water bottles. There was a point source spot near spot one which was near a house and the west bridge. Spot one also had cigarettes and trash. Spot two was near the playground and had glass, bottles, and piece of plastic. Spot three was farther down the river but still near the playground. It was where a cement pipe crossed the river and the spot had lots of pollen, trash and leaves there. These objects collected there because they were blocked by the cement pipe. We found that the river was dirty. Here are some of the tests we did to prove our hypothesis wrong.

Procedures: We preformed a umbr of tests Ph: Stick Ph paper in the river atach of the three spots Temperature: Stick a machine in the water, creful nt to fully submege it an read what the monitor says. Conductivity: Same as temperature Soil Moisture: Dig a hole next to the river and put the end of the machine in. Make sure it goes in sideways. Flow Rate: Put the wheel of the machine in the water and wait for it to spin. Then read the monitor. For Dissolved Oxygen we followe the instructions cafully in a kit that came with the chemicals we used to test it.

Ph numbers: This tells how acid or basic the river is. It could be acid from pollution or bacteria. The more acid, the less the river health. As you can see, the numbers are close to eachother.
 * Spot || Ph reading ||
 * Spot one || 7 ||
 * Spot two || 5 ||
 * Spot three || 6 ||

Temperature Test

Spot One: 21c Spot Two: 22c Spot Three:23c

We noticed a pattern and decided to test another spot farther down the river. This spot was past spot three by the playground. However, this spot was 21.9c so it got cooler. So we concluded that the area before the playground and inbetween the bridge was warm and after that spot it gets coler. It could get cooler because of depth of the water. This is also good because that water did not change to much terribley from place to place like it would if pollution or soil erosion was evident. These would increase the temperature drasticley.

Conductivty Test

Spot One: 299.3 ions/cm Spot Two: 297.9 ions/cm Spot Three: 284.4 ions/cm

The deeper the water got and farther down we went the slower the electric current was. This may be because it was away from houses. Spot One had the highest conductivity and was near a point source and right behind houses. Again, there wasn't much change in the conductivity levels.

Soil Moisture Test

Spot One: 25.2% Spot Two: 18.4% Spot Three: 9.5%

We concluded from this that the farther we went down the river the dryer it got. This is could be because the plants are drinking the water farther down. This good because the plants are drinking the water which means the water isn't to bad that there are no plants drinking it and means plant life is healthy.

Flow Rate Test

Spot One: 0.160 m/s Spot Two: 0.2001 m/s Spot Three: < 0.001 m/s

Some points in the river were faster than others and Spot One was deeper, but the flow rate was slower. Spot One was near a ripple zone and Spot Two was a main ripple zone.

Dissoloved Oxygen Test We took the sample from the middle of our experiments since we ran out of time. It is around spot 2 and between spot 1. Spot Four: 7.9 parts per million This is supposed to be pretty good, but if there was more oxygen particles, it would be better. During a fish's juvinial stages, it is said to be better if there was more oxygen dissolved in the water.

Conclusion: We ruled that the river is clean all because all of our numbers for our tests were relativley the same of close to eachother. An asumption we made is our spots may have been to close together.