Post 7: The Home Stretch

This week marks my last week at Siena for the summer working on this project. Next week I will be working from home looking at all of the data we've collected so far and finalizing a poster for all of the work we've been doing since May. Although this project is definitely far from over, it's really cool to see how far we've come since my first day working on this project and to have an idea of where it will be going.

So far we have all of the data from the sediment samples collected and compiled into tables and figures. This data was able to show us some important information regarding the heavy metal in different areas of the Patroon Creek. There are a bunch of different heavy metals in the sediment, some at much higher concentrations than others. One sample showed consistently high levels of lead which was one of the target metals considering the old lead plant that used to be in operation right on the Patroon Creek. This information could help propel different approaches of mitigating the pollution of the Patroon Creek in terms of heavy metal contamination. Our data can also indicate areas that will need immediate attention, like the sites in Tivoli Lake, because of their high heavy metal content. 

Our stream gauge data has not been collected yet because the loggers still need to collect some more daily data in order for us to have enough data to compare to the USGS data sets. This means that when I come back in September I get to go out in the field again and collect the stream gauge data (yay!). I'm very eager to see what data the loggers collected!

Another cool thing that came out of this project are the questions that I've thought of while working this summer. When we started this project in May we had one overarching question which was "What is the water quality of Patroon Creek and Tivoli Lake?" Although we are still trying to answer this question with stream gauge data, we already have an idea with the sediment sampling and XRF analysis, along with the macroinvertebrate sample we took a few weeks ago. While analyzing our data and reading other reports on Patroon Creek, I've thought of different questions that we can ask and different approaches to gather more data for our original question. 

This summer has been very interesting and I'm so glad that I had the opportunity to work on this project. Now it's time to organize my brain because I have way too many thoughts when it comes to creating this poster! 

Post 6: Slow and Steady

This week was definitely at a different pace than what we've done the past couple weeks. Dr. Meierdiercks has been at a conference so there was no field work! Not going to lie, staying inside doing computer work for four days straight is not super fun and makes time go by a little slower than usual. However, I'm trying this new thing where I find the positive aspect of certain situations I'm in. Even though I didn't get to do any field work this week, I still accomplished a lot and got some very important work done. 

So far we have data from the USGS showing us discharge and specific conductance measurements from 2002 to 2008. We have our own field equipment that's been out for about eight or nine weeks now collecting discharge and specific conductance data and next week we will go out and collect that data (yay more field work!). One parameter that could be related to discharge that we do not have a dataset for is annual rainfall. I tried finding any datasets of rainfall that could've been collected by the USGS or DEC in the Albany area considering they had these stream gauges set up and were taking discharge measurements. I looked everywhere I thought I could find such datasets on both websites and I had no luck. So guess who had the bright idea of going on a weather website, looking up each individual day from October 2002 to September 2008 and recording the amount of precipitation in Albany each day! That's right. I made six different tables for each "water year" the USGS had discharge data for, filled it with every day of that year, looked for the amount of precipitation that occurred that day, and then record that information in my table. I created a graph showing the annual mean for each water year and we should be able to relate it to the annual mean of discharge that I have. I also went through and calculated the monthly mean of precipitation for every month in every year and was able to create six separate graphs showing monthly mean. Needless to say, I spent a lot of time compiling this data. But I know that this new data will be able to help us with our project by possibly relating the two datasets and helping us explain certain phenomena that have happened in our area.

This week I also analysed our sediment samples using x-ray fluorescence (XRF) in the lab. This also took more time than I expected. However it was really interesting working in the lab with this equipment and very cool to see how it worked. I was able to collect some very important data for this project regarding sediment composition. Our target element is lead. There used to be a lead company on the Patroon Creek until 1984 and it was known that pollutants from this plant managed to get into the environment. As we all know, lead is definitely not a good thing to have in the environment. The XRF is able to tell us what heavy metals are present in a sample and how much of it is present. We had five samples and I ran each sample three times to try and get an accurate reading. In many of our samples I found several different heavy metals at varying levels. Some were at safe levels, some at rising levels, and some at levels that were too high for a healthy environment. 

Yesterday I started to work on a water quality report. Basically, I'm taking all of the data we have, from past studies that look at different aspects of the environment like soil cation exchange and macroinvertebrates to datasets that have the same parameters that we are collecting, and compiling it into one huge explanation of what the overall quality of Patroon Creek is. Soon enough we will have our own data to add to this report. Even though it isn't field work or.... some people's definition of fun, I've realized that this work is very important to our project and needs to be done. However, after a week of inside work, I am SO ready to get back out in the field to finish this project!

Post 5: Hell Yeah, I'm a Scientist

When I got back from vacation a couple of weeks ago, my family whom we visited in Belgium followed soon after to visit other family members here in the United States. One day, my seven-year-old cousin was interested in what we all do for work during the summer. I told him that I was working up at school doing a research project. He was curious as to what the project was so I told him I'm studying the water in my area to see if it's good or bad quality. He took a few seconds to ponder the information and then looked at me and said "Oh! So you're a scientist." I said to him (with a little chuckle) "Sure! I'm a scientist." But to be honest, in my head I said "Hell yeah! I'm a scientist!" I've told a lot of people about the research I'm doing, but I think that was my favorite response!

This brings me to the question that I will surely be asked at least once a week for the next eight or nine months: "What are you doing after graduation?" Considering I haven't even started senior year yet and I never even know what I want to eat for dinner, I have absolutely no clue what I'm doing after I graduate. However, working on this project, talking to other people, and this conversation with my cousin has gotten me to start thinking. Who knew that a seven-year-old could help you plan out the rest of your life?

I've always enjoyed science and was typically pretty good at certain subjects in school but I never really considered doing anything research related after school. This week, I met many different people who are currently working on or have done research. On Monday we took a trip to Bard College in Hudson and I met a couple of professors and a student working on water quality in their area. Their work is being incorporated into a bigger project that Dr. Meierdiercks has been working on to assess and improve the overall health of the Hudson River watershed. While at Bard, we took some direct discharge measurements in their study site to help further their research and knowledge of the water quality. After meeting and working with these individuals it was great to see how much people want to work together in a research based work setting to achieve the same goal and try to better their environment.

On Wednesday, we did macroinvertebrate sampling in Tivoli Lake Preserve with a couple of volunteers from the City of Albany and the County of Albany. These samples were collected by our team for analysis and will help the DEC determine different aspects of water quality in the area we collected. One volunteer who works for the City of Albany is working on a restoration project to improve Tivoli for community members so people will visit more and use it like the recreational park it was intended to be. She asked me about plans after graduation and asked if I wanted to do research. When I answered I didn't even think about it; I kind of just blurted out "I've never really thought about doing research but after this summer I would seriously consider it." So far I have had an incredible and interesting experience working on this project. It has really influenced my thoughts about graduation and has made me consider expanding my options even more. I am so grateful that I am able to work on this project and get this experience that not many other people would have.

Throughout the two and half hours we worked in Tivoli this past Wednesday, I could really get a sense of how this type of work has influenced this specific volunteer. The way she spoke about her project and Tivoli showed true passion about what she does and that she truly cares for her environment. Learning how to do this type of sampling is just one of the many things she was willing to do to better understand her environment to be able to improve it to the best of her abilities. I'm very sure that these interactions will remain important to me when dealing with post-undergrad sadness. So of course, thank you Dr. M for giving me the opportunity to work with you on this project and teaching me everything that research work entails. Thank you Eli and Chris at Bard for your excellent teamwork and dedication to this project. Thank you Mary from the City of Albany for sharing your passion with us and showing us that if you want to get something done you do all that you can to make a difference. And thank you Gabe for calling it how it is and making me realize that being a scientist is pretty cool. :)

Post 4: Back At It

My first week back from vacation was pretty busy and I couldn't be happier about it! Monday we were able to deploy the last stream gauge and soon enough we will be able to collect data from all of them. We have stream gauges in both the Kromma Kill and Patroon Creek Watersheds. We also have access to data collected by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) from October 2002 to September 2008 in the Patroon Creek. The main parameters we are focusing on with these gauges are discharge and specific conductance. Discharge is the volume of water that passes a specific point over a period of time. Specific conductance is the ability for water to conduct an electrical current and can be used to determine the total dissolved solids concentration of ions in solution. Our goal is to compare the data between the two watersheds, along with comparing present data in Patroon Creek with data collected at least eight years ago. 

When we weren't out in the field I was analyzing the USGS data online. They have measurements of discharge, temperature, and specific conductance from 2002 to 2008. Data was taken every day for those years and I was able to download it for analysis. I calculated the average of every parameter for each year and compiled that data into a summary chart. Then I was able to graph these points to show trends for discharge, temperature, and specific conductance. I found that average discharge has been steadily increasing from 2002 to 2008, average temperature has been increasing very little, and average specific conductance has decreased starting in 2002 but started to increase in 2007. Even though we are collecting data eight years later, hopefully we will be able to explain these trends better and see what has been occurring in the Patroon Creek these past years. 

On Thursday we started collecting sediment samples from the Patroon Creek Watershed. We will be testing these samples for heavy metals using x-ray fluorescence technology in our SAInT Center. I have absolutely no idea how to use this technology or how it will tell us what is in the soil so training next week will be very helpful! I'm really excited to see how this technology works and what I'll find in these samples. 

Next week we will also be working with the DEC for macroinvertebrate sampling. We'll be teaching a group of community members how they can help the DEC with water quality testing by collecting macroinvertebrate samples. Needless to say I'm really excited for the weeks to come! It was great being in the field as much as we were this week and I'm really looking forward to taking a look at the data we have.

Post 3: Why I Love Research

Throughout my many experiences in school the one thing that I absolutely despised was research papers. I always thought trying to find sources with relevant information took forever, I hated trying to write my own paper using terms and phrases of other people, and I always found it difficult to explicitly write out whatever was in my head. Not to mention that most of the time, I saved almost all of my work until the last minute. I hated research papers. Unfortunately, I was so busy feeling bad for myself when I received a research assignment, that I never truly understood how great of a learning tool research was.

I think what initially induced the fear of research papers was the fact that sometimes I couldn't choose my own topic and I was stuck writing about something I had no interest in (like that time in 5th grade I had to research the cotton gin and write a couple paragraphs about it). Of course later in high school and college we were given more freedom on topic selection and I found myself writing about more interesting things that weren't the cotton gin. But I still didn't fully understand why I had to do all of this work to write one paper. Even when I got to college I thought research papers were not how I wanted to spend my time. My sophomore year I took some research based classes and had to write a few papers, but I thought that was just teaching me how to write scientific papers. It seriously took me until the end of my junior year and this summer to realize the true value of research papers and projects. 

This past semester I took a class called Applied Wildlife Research where another student and I came up with our own research question, designed a project, and actually collected some data for our final report. Disclaimer, we had to research previous work done on our topic so that could learn more about our topic and so that we could create a project that would work and give us results to write about. The cool thing was, after doing the initial literature research before starting our project, we actually knew exactly what we wanted to do and how to execute our project. Wow! When I started this water quality project with Dr. Meierdiercks, I (surprise, surprise) had to do some research on the study area and what the current known state of the watershed is.

After doing all of the research I have done in the past few weeks, it (finally) fully clicked for me. Reading all of these reports and studies helped me learn a lot about my study area, what is known about the water quality in my study area, what else needs to be studied, and what can be done to improve this area. The key word here is learn. We are doing this research project to further expand our knowledge on the Patroon Creek watershed and so people can learn more about their environment. But initially I needed to expand my very little knowledge on the watershed. Now that I know even more information about the watershed and where I will be working, I am even more excited to be participating in this project. I'm so excited to see what data we collect and to analyze it. I'm so excited to see what results we come up after all of the research (and learning) that I have been doing the past three weeks.

Post 2: Getting Started

It's the end of week two of this research project and I have already had some pretty eye-opening experiences. Although most of my work has consisted of online research so far, I have been learning a lot and these experiences have definitely influenced my outlook on this project.

Coming into this project I didn't really know much about the surrounding watersheds in the Albany area. I knew a little about the Kromma Kill because there have been references in some of our environmental classes, and I helped collect water samples for a project almost two years ago. I had no clue as the what the nearby watersheds were even named, let alone what conditions they were in. When I learned that we would be working in the Patroon Creek watershed in Albany I knew that literary research was inevitable before going out into the field. Luckily Dr. Meierdiercks was prepared and had a bunch of sources ready for me to take a look at. Of course, I learned many things while reading these different sources. One was a report on a huge community project that has plans to improve the Tivoli Lake Preserve. This report spoke of many issues within the preserve that need to be addressed to better the Preserve so that it can reach its full potential as a nature preserve to be utilized by the community. I had realized that the water quality issues are not just an environmental concern, but a community concern. The citizens of Albany are aware of the poor environmental and geophysical quality, along with many safety issues within the Preserve, which made me think about the importance of environmental research. I used to be under the impression that environmentalists were the only ones who cared about environmental research considering how much I've been called out for being a "tree hugger" as an environmental science major. Reading this report has shown me that more and more people are becoming aware and concerned about local environmental issues and feel more inclined to do something about it.

Other sources that I read were research projects done by graduate students at SUNY Albany or the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). These reports were very interesting to read and I definitely learned a lot about the Patroon Creek watershed. One thing that was always addressed in any of these reports was the fact that the Patroon Creek watershed is an urban watershed. It is located in the most urban part of Albany and has a history of so many different industrial neighbors. Not only has industrial waste been an issue, but there are other identified sources of pollution that have affected the Patroon Creek watershed. The first study I read was about road salt applications within the area. Water and soil samples were collected and analyzed for sodium and chlorine ion concentrations within the watershed. The study found that ion concentrations became elevated during the winter months (when road salt is at its peak use) but the high concentrations persist throughout the year. The elevated concentrations have been known to be very unhealthy for aquatic life and vegetation. Another study I read was about heavy metal contamination in the Patroon Creek. The levels of heavy metals found in the sediments were higher compared to other stream sediments and were understood to be detrimental to aquatic life. One of my fellow students conducted a study about the bioaccumulation of heavy metals in fish that are found in Rensselaer Lake and Tivoli Lake. In the three species populations he studied, he found 16 different heavy metals, four of which were very concerning at the levels he found.

All of these scientific studies were very intriguing and their results are a cause for major concern. As I am reading other sources, especially their discussions at the end of their reports, I start to realize something very unfortunate. These studies are concluding that there are major problems within the Patroon Creek watershed, but apparently there aren't enough contaminants for remediation action. A different study about heavy metals discussed the heavy metals found in the sediment but then concluded that according to certain guidelines there is no need for further cleanup; that "uranium soil cleanup criterion was exceeded" and that "uranium and thorium in all other off-site sediment samples...indicate that no further action is required in these areas." ..........What? I mean, yea maybe these contaminants aren't all concentrated into one area to cause detrimental damages, but isn't the fact they are present enough of a reason to call for action?

I think reading these conclusions really solidified why I wanted to be involved with this research project. I am definitely interested in doing field work, researching my environment, and discovering all of these different aspects of my environment. But doing this research will be able to uncover more unknown information about the Patroon Creek watershed that the community should know about. Even if our results conform to some sort of guidelines that do not require more cleanup in the area, hopefully they can add to the information the community needs to incite action for more remediation within the watershed. 

Post 1: Research Proposal

Introduction

Urban watershed management in the United States has been known to be no easy task. A particular watershed can include several different bodies of water and tributaries that contribute to one larger body of water. If maintaining all of these smaller sources of natural water sounds like a project, imagine these sources being located in a heavily populated and industrialized city setting. Urban watersheds are usually known to be easily exposed to many different sources of contaminants due to their locations. The Patroon Creek watershed located in Albany County, New York is notorious among urban watersheds in New York state for the historic anthropogenic alterations.

The Patroon Creek is a little over six miles long and resides in a watershed that is roughly 5,000 acres. It begins in Rensselaer Lake and empties into the Hudson river, traveling through urbanized areas of Albany, as well as different nature preserves such as the Albany Pine Bush and Tivoli Lake Preserve. Although the creek flows through major preserves, only about 17% of the watershed is forested. The rest is left to major urban areas and has been known to feel the effects of urbanization.

Few, but important studies have been done on the Patroon Creek, specifically in the Tivoli Lake Preserve area. This area has been known to be affected by industrial and chemical pollution such as heavy metal waste products and road salts. One study done in 2004 by Elizabeth Erikson of the University of Albany states that “the application of road salt in an urban watershed leads to increased sodium and chloride concentrations in surface water and groundwater, which can adversely affect aquatic ecosystems, and may have consequences for soil cation exchange.” Her study found that road salt ions are very prevalent in the water and soil of the Patroon Creek and remain at elevated levels throughout the year. This affects many different aspects of the ecosystem such as how it affects the wildlife, the plant life, and how it alters different habitats. Another study done in 2001 by John Arnason and Barbara Fletcher of the University of Albany demonstrates how levels of heavy metals (cadmium, mercury, lead, and uranium) are very high in the Patroon Creek compared to levels in sediments from other highly impacted areas of industrial pollution. The levels of heavy metals found from this study is known to be detrimental to aquatic life.

Objectives

• To get a better understanding of the water quality of the Patroon Creek and Tivoli Lake.
• To get a better understanding of the soil quality of the Patroon Creek and Tivoli Lake.
• To compare the results to data collected within the Kromma Kill Watershed.

Methodology

Monitoring equipment will be set up at six different sites within the Patroon Creek Watershed and the Kromma Kill Watershed. Water and soil quality sampling will be done at these sites on a monthly basis. We will be able to analyze the water quality based on the monitoring equipment set up in the field, and the soil samples will be analyzed using Siena College’s SAINT Center and X-ray fluorescence equipment.

Deliverables

This project will be able to provide more insight on the water and soil quality of the Patroon Creek and Tivoli Lake. By the end of this research, we will be able to provide a final report and poster presentation on our findings.

Data Sources

• United States Geological Survey (USGS)
• Data collected by Dr. Katherine Meierdiercks and myself

Work Plan/Timeline

Week 1, 5/31/2016: Research background info on Tivoli Lake and Patroon Creek, scout study sites in Tivoli Lake Preserve, brush up on GIS skills.

Week 2, 6/6/2016: Build field equipment, set up equipment at determined study sites, continue researching information on the sites, continue working on GIS.

Week 3, 6/13/2016: Collect field data, continue doing research and GIS work.

Week 4, 7/11/2016: Collect and analyze field data, continue research and GIS work.

Week 5, 7/18/2016: Collect and analyze field data, continue research and GIS work.

Week 6, 7/25/2016: Collect and analyze field data, continue GIS work.

Week 7, 8/1/2016: Analyze field data, continue GIS work, start poster draft.

Week 8, 8/8/2016: Work on final poster.