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.