Testin the Quality of Water Essay

RESULTS: Our main goal was to identify which lakes and ponds tested positive for Coliform or Escherichia coli and to come up with some reasoning as to why this could have happened. Water sampled from 6 different locations: Sebago Lake, Hinckley Reserve, Clarks Pond, a small pond near the turf field at the University of Southern Maine, in Gorham, Maine, and two runoff snowbanks both located on the USM campus in Gotham were all surveyed. These samples were taken into the lab, mixed with a COLISURE packet and pipetted into a well plate. They were then incubated for at least 24 hours at 37˚C to see if they would yield positive or negative results. The COLISURE kit perviously mentioned tests for two things: first for Coliform in the sample

Today I met with Mr. Schwinnen and Mrs. Laughbaum at the high school in order to perform chemical testing on my water samples. Mr. Schwinnen taught me how to use the YSI 9300 Photometer to find the phosphorus and nitrogen levels. For both tests, I filled a test tube with my water sample of a site, and then I put a crushed tablet that goes with whichever test I was doing (nitrogen or phosphorus). After that dissolved, I put the a second crushed tablet into the sample and let that sit for 15 minutes. The two tablets are labeled so I know when to use each one. While the test tube was sitting, the water would change colors. Once the 15 minutes were up, I put the sample into the YSI 9300 Photometer so it could give me the nitrogen and phosphorus levels. I repeated these steps for all 5 sites with the nitrogen tablets and phosphorus tablets. After I wrote down all my results, Mr. Schwinnen showed me the HI 93703 and I found the turbidity. All I had to do was shake all my water samples and put them into test tubes. These test tubes then went into

Gently run the swab the surface of one of the agar plate’s labeled landside. Be sure not to touch the agar twice in the same place.

For the nitrate test, all of the test tubes were filled to 5 mL with the water we collected, and one Nitrate WR TesTab was added into each tube. Immediately after adding the tablet, each tube was placed into a protective sleeve due to UV light sensitivity. The test tubes are then capped and mixed for two minutes and set to rest for five minutes before analyzing the results in comparison to the nitrate color chart (LaMotte, 2010).

Almost every experiment had good results. The only to bad results were the pH- using strips and the turbidity. The pH - using trips was a 4 but doing the pH - using tablets had a 7. So it can go either way. Turbidity was 20 but that isn’t that high. The DO was 4ppm and that is almost perfect. That means that it has plants, but not a lot of them. The temperature of the pond was not cold and not warm. The temperature varies though throughout the seasons. There were 0 ppm results for the nitrates. That is very good. It doesn’t increase the plant growth but also doesn’t decrease the plant growth. The ammonia levels were also 0ppm. That means that the insects and animals don’t get sick by drinking the water or swimming in it. There were many bioindicators in the pond. There were water striders, tadpoles, grass, flowers, algae, gnats, and cat tails. The Voyager pond is very healthy and it should stay

Over the past fifty years, Hawaii has seen a drastic increase in ocean and land pollution. There has been a lot of plastic in the ocean after it has been discarded from use. It affects marine life and us because we eat fish what if fish that are contaminated with poison or full with plastic in them then we eat it, it's really bad for our environment. This increase in pollution is harming the environment in Hawaii. Our food sources, marine life, and wildlife are being negatively affected through air pollutants, water contamination, and physical waste from human activity. Pollution rates need to rapidly decline if we want to stray abroad the potential, irreversible effects on the environment of Hawaii, as well as the entire world.

Water quality describes the condition of the H¬2¬O, including chemical, physical, and biological characteristics. The water quality test that are generally carried out are pH, turbidity, temperature, dissolved oxygen, dissolved phosphate and nitrate. Dissolved oxygen refers to the level of free present in H¬2¬O. It is an important parameter in assessing water quality because of its influence on the organisms living within a body of H¬2¬O. Dissolved oxygen is oxygen gas molecules (O2) present in the water. Generally, oxygen is spread through diffusion, which is determined by many factors including temperature of water, rapids, falls, time, climate and altitude. For example, a stagnant H¬2-O will have less dissolved oxygen than a fast flowing

Freshwater sources are open to vulnerabilities, such as pollution from the environment and the presence of bacteria. Because the Koi Pond is out in an external environment, it was reasonable to assume that contaminants and bacteria could enter the water source. As mentioned in the results section, the Koi Pond was the only water sample that exhibited E. coli; the hypothesis was supported by the lab results. The Koi Pond water sample looked identically to the other types of water samples; however, it would be wrong to assume that just because the samples had similar appearance, they were also similar in quality. For instance, the Deer Park water sample was also clear, but it had no presence of E. coli. Furthermore, the aquarium water sample

It is widely known that water covers almost three-quarters of the Earth's surface. However, it is not widely known that more than 99 percent of Earth's water is unusable by humans and many other living things. Less than one percent of water which supports most of the forms of life we are familiar with. Unfortunately, that one percent of fresh water becomes more polluted every year. The pollutants that fill our waterways each year are largely unknown. Water pollution comes from a number of unique sources, such as industrial waste, urban storm-water, agricultural runoff, various household chemicals and even nuclear waste. Combining these points of pollution with the increase in global population results in a continuously decreasing

Water is perhaps the most important component of any ecosystem. All living organisms need water to grow and survive. As human population continues to grow, we need to understand and determine the effects our habits will have on the ecosystems and our water supply. Four factors that can affect the quality and importance of water are its abilities as a solvent, dipolar, benefits and costs. Acceptance and long-term sustainability of water quality interventions are pivotal to realizing continued health benefits. According to the EPA (2015), “only 3% of the world’s water is suitable for drinking, 2% of which is found in glaciers and ice, so in reality, only 1% of the earth’s water is accessible and potable”.

Week 2 started by determining the pH of 8 water sources. The pH of the various water sources are displayed in Table 2 as follows: rain water at 5.58, water with atmospheric levels of CO2 at 6.40, the Jordan river at 6.60, the Clear creek at 7.20, Lake Monroe at 7.74, water saturated with CaCO3 at 9.45, and water saturated with CO2 at 4.10.

Bacteriological quality standards are used to prevent diseases and sicknesses that can be contracted through the uses of the river’s water, such as swimming. Escherichia Coli (E. coli), a harmful group of bacteria commonly found in the intestine of animals and humans, is used as an indicator of pathogens. (Figure 3) Another indicator is the Total Coliform quality which is the total number of Coliform bacteria, such as E. coli, which exist in the river. Coliform bacteria is used as an indicator because they usually exist where other pathogens of fecal origins exists. Although disinfection periods try to clean the water, the

Water purification is the process of removing undesirable chemicals, biological contaminants, suspended solids and gases from contaminated water. The goal is to produce water fit for a specific purpose. Most water is purified for human consumption (drinking water), but water purification may also be designed for a variety of other purposes, including meeting the requirements of medical, pharmacological, chemical and industrial applications. In general the methods used include physical processes such as filtration,sedimentation, and distillation, biological processes such as slow sand filters or biologically active carbon, chemical processes such asflocculation and chlorination and the use of electromagnetic radiation such as ultraviolet

All of us need water; our body is made approximately of 60% of water. This liquid is so important for us that over the years the way in which it is delivered to the consumer had developed to increase the quality of the final product. In order to give to the consumer high quality drinking water, the distribution systems had to be developed to insure that the same water in which goes out of the water treatment plant is the water in which goes out of the consumer’s sink.

Drinking, or even being in contact with the polluted water can make people sick. Also, a possible