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Community Service Project. Activity 1: Planning and Completing Your Community Service Project. In order to improve water quality:. Pollution can come from many different sources: Industrial waste pipes Household sewage Farming of crops or livestock Lawn fertilizers or pesticides Litter
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Activity 1: Planning and Completing Your Community Service Project
Pollution can come from many different sources: • Industrial waste pipes • Household sewage • Farming of crops or livestock • Lawn fertilizers or pesticides • Litter • And, anything that results in pollution on the ground that can be washed off by rains and stormwater runoff.
Let’s Consider Temperature! • Were your readings: • Good? Fair? Poor? • If fair or poor, what might be causing those conditions? • Parking lot or street runoff • Lack of streambank trees (riparian canopy cover) • Hydropower cooling water or other industrial discharge to stream
Let’s Consider Dissolved Oxygen! • Were your readings: • Good? Fair? Poor? • If fair or poor, what might be causing those conditions? • Algae in the creek • Lack of shade/warm water • Low flows with few riffles • A lot of organic matter (leaves, twigs, grass clippings, manure or sewage!)
Let’s consider pH! • Were your readings: • Good? Fair? Poor? • If fair or poor, what might be causing those conditions? • pH too low, < 6 (acidic)? • Acid rain • Mining runoff • pH too high, > 9 (basic)? • Limestone bedrock • Concrete parking lot, sidewalks, etc.
Let’s Consider Turbidity! • Were your readings: • Good? Fair? Poor? • If fair or poor, what might be causing those conditions? • Soil erosion from: • Streambanks • Construction sites • Farmland (bare crop fields) • Algae • Sewage/manure
Let’s Consider E. coli! Were your readings: Good? Fair? Poor? If fair or poor, what might be causing those conditions? • Human sewage • Broken sewer line, overflowing sewer • Failing septic system • Straight pipe • Livestock manure from pasture or feedlots • Pet waste • Wildlife
How was the stream biology? Were your readings: Good? Fair? Poor? If fair or poor, what might be causing those conditions? • Poor stream chemistry (dissolved oxygen, temperature, pH, turbidity) • Poor habitat conditions • Other unknown pollutants (heavy metals, chemicals, petroleum/oil, etc.) Image: https://www.fondriest.com/
How was the stream habitat? Were your readings: Good? Fair? Poor? If fair or poor, what might be causing those conditions? • Development close to stream • Narrow riparian buffer • Not enough trees and shrubs for shading and streambank habitat • High turbidity • Livestock trampling of streambanks • Stream straightening • Streambank erosion Buckhorn Creek, Breathitt County
What are the water quality concerns for your adopted stream?
Developing a Project Idea • Key Questions: • What can be done to improve or protect the stream? • What do we need to plan and implement our project? • Who can we ask to help? • Plan out a schedule with project tasks. • Complete the Community Project Tracking Form.