Thermal Inversion, Much Wow!

Thermal Inversion

Image form Google images

Thermal inversion is an atmospheric phenomenon that occurs when a layer of warm air rests over a layer of cool air near the ground. The warm air holds the cold air near the ground, which traps in pollutants from human activities. Most commonly, thermal inversion will trap industrial or photochemical smog. This is bad for cities, and can cause severe illness and in extreme cases death. This is because of the harmful pollutants and chemicals that compose industrial and photochemical cause. Both created primarily by different types of combustion, they pose an equally scary threat to most organisms in their vicinity.

The Andover Transfe Station

The Andover Transfer Station

Recycling Station
Taken By William Cox

On February 6th, 2016, our AP Environmental Science class took a field trip to the Andover Transfer Station, where all our trash and recycling goes before getting recovered and incinerated. "In Andover, about 72% of trash is recovered" says Alan, seeming almost content with the majority percentage that represents the amount of trash that will be reused amongst us humans. Waste that is recovered is waste that will not end up in an incinerator or a landfill. In the picture above, my peer Amen is recycling some waste products in a system known as single stream recycling, which is a system in which a sizable list of materials can be recycled together in the same container. This list of materials includes all paper fibers, aluminum, plastics #1-7, cardboard, and other recyclable materials. Other recoverable waste products are placed for transfer in other compartments and designated corners of the transfer station.

 

In the picture to the right, my peer QuocAnh is throwing a bag of garbage into the hopper. Which is a giant mechanism stored inside of a building, that occasionally crushes all inside of it into a small cube, to be shipped off and incinerated or planted into a landfill. All waste disposed of in the hopper is the percentage of waste that is not recovered. This includes about 28% of waste. 

"White Goods"
Taken by William Cox

In this picture, all the "White Goods" (Fridges, Freezers, Air conditioners etc...) are placed in one corner of the transfer station because they are to be recovered in specific ways. These products often contain freon, which is a moderately toxic chemical created by the ever-growing chemical industry.

 

Metal Waste Container
Taken by William Cox

The picture above is a picture of the container in which all of our metal waste is to be thrown. This often includes alliances that are non-toxic, as well as any random scrap metal, like broken bicycles. 

Tire Container
Taken by William Cox

The picture above depicts the place in which all of the tires are placed for recovery. These tires must be recovered because otherwise they create very toxic fumes when incinerated, and they take an extremely long time to break down in a landfill. 

"[All] electronics that are brought to the transfer station in 

Andover are shipped to Rochester to be recycled" Says local worker named Debbie. There was a whole room full of old televisions and other electronic devices, including a special spot for batteries and mercury containing devices. 

"Most of the electronics that are brought in still work" Says Debbie, referring to the many old televisions stored in the building, waiting for transfer to Rochester. 

"Most places want to get to 0% waste" Says teacher Alan McIntyre, expressing his hopeful outlook on trash and how we deal with it. Hopefully in the future we can eliminate food waste, which makes up 10-14% of waste. 

Most of the resource recovery at the Andover Transfer Station and most other Transfer Stations is mandated by the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, an act designed to create a framework for the proper management of hazardous and non-hazardous waste.  

Kent Armstrong and his Army of Turd Herders

William Cox

January 26th, 2016

Alan McIntyre

Everyone Loves a Good Turd Herder

Image from Da Begor Blog

In Proctor's Advanced Placement Environmental Science classroom on January 24th, we had a guest speaker who talked about his career as a Biologist, and how he plans on helping mother nature deal with the millions of toxic chemicals that are released naturally, and synthetically. His name was Kent Armstrong, and he introduced himself by telling a story from his ever present youth. "I have worn many hats," Says Armstrong, "I started out as a turd herder..." Everyone fell somewhat silent, as is typical of teenagers when they don't quite understand a joke. Armstrong started his career as a Biologist in a waste water treatment facility, conducting tests on the possibly contaminated water. He reminisced about the time he applied for the job, and how he had never seen a magnetically stirred beaker before: "Walk me through all these tests, If I can't do them in two weeks, I will fire myself... 

and I was there for three years." Expressing his constant will to learn, a value that has high praise at Proctor Academy, he kept the lecture interesting with stories from his past. He explained that his job is to test the chemical compositions of surface water in certain areas. "[Microbes] love carbon" Armstrong states, describing some of the larger carbons found in certain toxins, like gasoline. He says that the goal of his work is to add bio-stimulants to increase bioremediation. He also described the most common toxins to the Earth today. Including building materials, like lead paint or asbestos. Also including metals, like sand/dust, or Lead (Pb) Arsenic (As), and Cadmium (Cd). Finally, organic pollutants, like petrol, and solvents. Solvents are typically Chlorine (Cl) based, he adds. He also begins to talk about the dangers of Poly Fluorinated Solvents. Due to their molecular complexity, they are especially hard to fix through bioremediation. He begins to talk about how bioremediation actually works, how great Mother Nature has begun to design microbes who process the bad chemicals through respiration. One of Armstrong's goals is to engineer a microbe that will breath Poly Fluorinated Solvents.

PFo Molecular Diagram
Found on Google Images

"[Synthetic] Solvents were introduced in 1837 (or something like that) for dry cleaning. In 1940 they were mass produced to clean the grease off of metal for the production of war machines, especially for the air force... Since then, theres now about sixty genera of [microbes] who can breath this stuff" Kent describes Earth's resourcefulness in engineering new critters constantly to deal with toxins created and extracted by us insidious critters. 

Screenshot from Kent Armstrong Video 

Armstrong goes on to explain a complicated respiratory response from certain microbes, who breath in chlorinated molecules and eliminate chlorine atoms, one electron at a time. "I enhance their ability to breathe the chloride atom." Unfortunately, through this process, Vinyl Chloride is created, which is an extremely toxic carcinogen, and one of Kent's worst fears in life. He then goes on to describe some of the other toxic chemicals, and why we should avoid them. He talks about old hairspray and nail polish remover, "Like anything else, if it tastes really good, its probably bad for you" These chemicals are directly made out of Vinyl Chlorine, and are "One of the worst things you could put in your mouth."
Hopefully, there will be a day when Bioremediation of chlorine will result in Ethyne, which is a clean chemical that could probably be extremely useful, if humanity decided to adapt to it as a commodity. But this goal is some time off. "Why are these [Dangerous chemicals] in the ground? (turns off light) Because we love this... (turns light back on)." The instant gratification rewarded by the use of electricity is undeniable to most people. Kent Armstrong makes this clear as day, not by shutting the lights off, but by turning them back on. "But what is the Cost?" He asks. "Mother nature has a bucket, but we have a firehose pointed into that bucket, so what we do is try to help her" Says Armstrong, describing the production rate of toxic chemicals versus Earth's natural ability to balance them out through respiration. 

There are three major steps for the clean up of toxic chemicals

1.) Evaluate the site: Learn the site's history, and conduct tests.

2.) Survey out a map: Learn the history of the area in which the site rests.

3.) Clean up/Remediation: "Hog and Haul" or the removal of toxic chemicals in dump-trucks, costs about 100$ per ton. Or, Soil wash with "Magic fufu dust" (I didn't catch what this actually was, but I'm assuming it is something to counteract the solvents in certain soils.) The goal however, is Bioremediation. 

Kent Armstrong then talks about Bioaccumulation, a subject that has become somewhat farmiliar. Bioaccumulation is the magnification of the concentration of certain chemicals as an observer moves up the food chain. For instance, a plankton might only have .0001 parts per billion of any given chemical, but as the fish eat plankton, and the seals eat the fish, and the orca whales eat the seals, the orcas will have an exponentially higher number than the plankton, like 10 parts per billion. 

Kent also tells a story about his experience in the court of law, and how paid lobbyists will do anything to fight the exposure of their industry, which in this case, is the chemical industry. 

Finally, He describes the end result of his career in Biology: Bioremediation. 

Bioremediation is the injection of "nutrition" allowing the solvents, and microbes to breathe, so that they can eat the bad chemicals. This process takes lots of time and money, which is why it gets so often shut down by the government. However, Kent does describe a situation in which the government is more than happy to help. In cities, his business will often buy out old buildings that are in debt because they need remediation, they then ask for help from the city government to remediate the buildings, and flip them for money to go back into research. They call these old buildings Brownfields, and they are different Superfund Sites, which are massive contaminations. Towards the end of his speech, Kent references the Mad Hatter to stress the toxicity of certain chemicals once and for all. 

All of this talk about chemicals I find very ironic. Humanity causes a chemical mess, and Mother Nature's way of dealing with it is creating microbes that exhale carcinogens. I also find it ironic that I have been so angry recently, and I live in an old house where my room used to be painted from floor to roof in lead paint. And a lot of it would crack and fall down to the floor or even onto my bed. This is ironic, because I'm genuinely angry about this, and lead is known to cause anger, so I really don't know how to feel. I believe that if there is a way to make Ethylene out of bad Chlorines through respiration, then it would be a good temporary solution to the toxicity problem, but in the long run I believe we have messed this planet up to the point where we will kill off almost every animal on Earth, and Mother Nature will have to start from scratch, creating a new society in our ruin, perhaps these futuristic creatures will see our remains and learn from our mistakes. 

Toxicity of our City

The Toxicity of our City

"You know, its hard to know what happens to a life, or my life, if you change a central event." 
Andrew McGuire(Screen Shot from Toxic Hot Seat)

Andrew McGuire is a fire safety enthusiast. He was covered in third degree burns on his back, legs, and head as a child, due to a cooking accident when he was only eight years old. Ever since that incident his life has been focused on reducing fire danger for everyone. 

In the 1970s fire danger was becoming a severe problem here in the United States. There was about 2900 deaths every year from house fires. Back then almost everyone smoked cigarettes, and they were a leading cause of furniture related fires. The obvious solution was to change the cigarette, to make it self extinguishing. But even though they could manufacture this kind of cigarette, the cigarette companies refused. "They don't want their product associated with [fire] incidents." (Andrew McGuire). The cigarette industry instead put all the blame onto the furniture company, repeatedly throwing them under the bus in the court and in the media. "Everyone believes that you cannot take on the tobacco industry, its to big, its too powerful, and probably thats the single leading cause of nothing happening. That people think it isn't possible." McGuire said in an interview in the 80s, describing the struggle he and other fire safety enthusiasts were having against the tobacco industry. Andrew McGuire went on to win a MacAurthur award for his efforts to help the United States pass-fire safe cigarette legislation. Yet in 1975, in California, they had already come up with a different solution, and it was called Technical Bulletin 117: "...all upholstered furniture manufactured for sale for use in this state... Shall be fire retardant..."

No other state or even country had any standard for fire retardants in upholstered furniture. "Because California's market is so huge, its in all your furniture, throughout the country" (McGuire). They began to put fire retardants in everything, just because of California's Regulation. "Nobody knew about it except for the furniture company" (McGuire) The picture on the right is a picture of a flame retardant notice that you can find on nearly any upholstered furniture, even today (Found on google images). 

Many studies later came out in the 1980s with test results, showing how quickly many of these flame retardants can get into our bloodstream, and that they are, in fact, very toxic. In one study, a little girl's urine was tested 1 day after wearing pajamas treated with brominated Tris (a flame retardant), and the chemical was found in her urine sample. The scariest part about this study is that the chemical happens to be a carcinogen, or a cancer causing chemical. With the release of this study, Tris was banned from children's' clothing. However, brominated Tris is still the most popular flame retardant, and can still be found in almost any furniture, and even in baby products. 

Thankfully, We have found other ways to reduce the amount of fires in the United States. Including laws regarding sprinkler systems and fire alarms in nearly all new buildings. Also, cigarettes finally were made to be self extinguishing. "There are ways to mandate that the fabric meet a certain weave and thickness standard, with no chemicals added, that makes it fire resistant." (McGuire). There are ways that the furniture companies can make furniture now so that it is fire resistant naturally, with no toxic chemicals added. Yet still California required flame retardants in all furniture manufacturing. And because of the persistence and bioaccumulation ability of the chemicals, people all over the country were finding toxic flame retardant chemicals in their bodies. It was very hard to propose a successful bill to remove flame retardants from fabrics, simply because the flame retardant industry was able to release hundreds of media adds bashing the bill, stating that it would cause hundreds of fires, stating things such as: the average furniture in our homes without fire retardants will cause severe house fires. "Either you have people behind you, or money behind you, and we don't have the money" McGuire describes his fight against the Technical Bulletin 117. Thankfully the main legislature had enough people to back up their bill, and toxic flame retardants were banned in the state. It did not pan out that way in California, however. In 2008 Mark Leno, a California state senator, proposed Assembly Bill 706, to ban brominated and chlorinated flame retardants, which failed miserably against the opposing chemical industry. In 2010 Leno proposed another bill, Senate Bill 772, to exempt some children's products from TB117, so that they wouldn't have to be made with the chemicals. They were defeated once again by the chemical industry. Leno proposed another bill in 2010, Senate bill 1291 to reevaluate flammability standard, and he failed again to the Chemical industry. Countless bills were trumped by the money that backs up such industries as the chemical industry. "Theres gotta be national media coverage over and over to educate the public" McGuire states, describing the struggle of lobbying against the chemical industry without money to back them up. Finally, due to repetitive journalism coverage on the toxicity of flame retardants, the Governor of California at the time, Governor Brown, released a letter directing state agencies to revise flammability standards. Eventually through a public hearing there was a majority vote to regulate the chemicals released by the chemical industry, and that all synthetic chemicals should be tested for safety before they are released into the public, and from that point forward the flame retardant production companies folded, one by one, giving into the legislatures votes to revise the Technical Bulletin 117 regulation. 

To me it seems crazy that there could ever be such potential harmful chemicals released into the environment with no regulation. Yet that is what it was. There was no checks on the chemical industry. Thousands of chemicals were being released every year, and they would accumulate and spread in the environment to the point where synthetic chemicals can be found in polar bears across the globe from where these chemicals were being produced. Andrew McGuire states his support for "sane chemical regulations" at the end of Toxic Hot Seat. I believe that this notion cannot be stressed enough to not only US legislature, but to any country's leaders and lawmakers. It is not fair to anyone to have these toxic chemicals released into the environment, because these chemicals cannot be taken back, and they will persist in nature probably longer than humanity will even survive. It is not even fair to the earth, to pollute it so boldly, and without immediate consequence. This is why I agree with McGuire, who is still wary of chemicals even after their success in California, and urges everyone to also be wary of the many chemicals that make our lives toxic. 

Flame Retardants at Proctor

Flame Retardants at Proctor

Due to the flame retardant requirements of California Bureau of Home Furnishings Technical Bulletin 117, flame retardant furniture and other products can be found in nearly any facility, and even in your own home.

Image from Google Images

This notice tag means that the product has been doused in flame retardant. You cant find these tags on the bottom of most upholstered furniture. These flame retardants are made up of toxic synthetic chemicals that can be harmful or even cause death to humans. They also do not do their job very well, they only hold back fires for a matter of seconds, and they make the fire burn hotter than it would have without the flame retardants. There are far more effective flame retardant method's that are natural, such as tightly woven wool or cotton. However these methods are more expensive, and this is why most of the world had resorted to using the cheap chemical flame retardants that are in so many of our products today. 

Chart of Upholstered Furniture in Proctor Academy Facilities

The kind of room that we found the most potential flame retardants in was the meeting house, because of the sheer number of foam chairs and the electronic devices found in the room with the projector. We could not find a tag to confirm that there is flame retardants in each of the seats, but we have reason to believe that they had them. The most abundant product to be found doused in flame retardants would be electronic devices. These are most abundantly doused in flame retardants because they are most likely to start fires, like a projector for instance, in which the lightbulb can reach startling temperatures. The product that gets the most use from people, however, would probably be the chairs of the meeting house. They are used almost every day by hundreds of students and faculty. I believe that the electronic components will tend to have the least health risk because it is harder for flame retardants from to get from the electronic devices into the bloodstream of humans, where the stuff can become airborne just from a someone sitting in a foam chair. 

After watching Toxic Hot Seat, I believe that there is not much that can be done about exposure to PBDE and TB 117 from products already in existence, but what can be changed is the future. All companies should not be allowed to take the cheap shortcuts in the production of products, that in turn lead to the mass creation of dangerous synthetic chemicals. Instead these companies should have to find natural ways to make their products flame resistant. Concerns including PBDEs include that evidence shows that high concentrations of it causes neurological effects in Animals. Which could easily also be true for humans. Though there has not been enough time since the creation of PBDEs and TB117s for there to be conclusive evidence on the effect they have on humans, which is also very scary. Especially considering the amount of these chemicals that we are exposed to in our daily lives. 

Proctor Academy Meeting House

The Spirit of the Pond

Sunday, Nov 1, 2015

The Spirit of the Pond

by Will Cox

With help from Eric Bonewald and James Neylon 

General Basis of the Lab:

Will Cox and James Neylon Go fishing for critters.
Photo credits: Eric Bonewald

The general basis purpose of this lab was to investigate the overall health of the pond on Proctor Academy’s campus through abiotic and biotic testing and observation. This was done by taking tallies of the individual organisms of certain species living in the pond. We also took samples of the water and conducted tests to measure the abiotic factors of the pond's health. As a class, we split the pond into six testing sites, and conducted tests on four separate days. The dates that we tested were the 20th, 22nd, 23rd, 26th of October 2015.  In order to better determine the ecological health of the Proctor pond, we have looked at some of the data from previous APES classes who have inspected the pond. We then compared these data sets with our own, to inspect the. Because of our groups site, which was located next to the turf field, we also tried to inspect that the turf pellets would have on the pond ecosystem. 

Materials:

LaMotte Dissolved Oxygen Testing Kit

Phosphate test tabs 

PH wide range test tabs 

LaMotte turbidity test kit

For the tests above, the examiner would simply follow the instructions on the boxes or kits that the tests came in. 

Temperature gauge

-For Air temperature: Hold the thermometer in the air and wait for the number to even out into a constant, which should then be recorded as the air temperature.

-For Water temperature: Hold the shaft of the thermometer fully underwater, then wait for the the number to even out to a constant. This number should then be recorded as the water temperature.

Tools for observing biotic factors:

• Small tray
• Spoon
• Pipet
• ID sheets for Macro-vertebrates
• White Plastic Tub
• Net

Procedure:

The procedure for our test days was as follows:

1. Observe and record general abiotic factors of the site, including weather, wind speed, and time of day.

2. Test the water and air for abiotic factors, including air temperature, water temperature, pH, Phosphate, Dissolved oxygen, Turbidity. 

3. Scour the bottom of the pond for leaves and organisms with a net, and dump all of the collected matter into a tray small tub with water. 

4. Comb the debris, leaf by leaf for any sign of organisms or other notable materials by picking up each individual leaf (or other type of debris) and looking for any organisms that might be clinging on. 

5. Use the pipet or the spork to single out the individuals found in the tub of water and debris, then place them into a tray for identification. 

6. Once all of the individual organisms have ben identified and recorded, the sample matter should be returned into the pond along with all of its organisms. 

General Report:

My group, including Eric Bonewald, James Neylon, and myself, were assigned to test at sight 2. This site is located on the opposite side of the pond of both the inflow and outflow of water. It was near 4 large rocks imbedded in the pond's floor, creating little islands that we worked on top of. This site was also right next to the turf field, meaning that the small rubber turf pellets might have a subtle effect on the biotic factors of our pond site. Fortunately, the only rubber human debris we found in the pond was nothing more than a mouthguard and a tennis ball (both of which were extracted from the pond, to reduce pollution). Our first day on the site, October 20th, was a cold and wet day. Our observers, including myself, were very hesitant to get their hands wet with the near freezing water. It was a sunny day, after it had rained in the morning, with medium speed winds, up to 3 on the Beaufort Scale. Our second day, October 22nd, was similar to the first, in that it was very cold and uncomfortable for tests involving water, and the submergence of extremities. The weather was overcast and rainy, and it was a glum day on the site. The wind was nearly nonexistent this day, coming through at a whopping 0 on the Beaufort scale. Our third and fourth days, October 23rd, and October 26th, were similar to each other in that they were both sunny, and the temperature had risen from the days before. There was gusts on the 23rd up to 5 on the Beaufort scale, which was the highest we recorded over the entire lab. They wind reached 2 on the 26th. 

The Proctor Pond, Birds Eye View
Site 2 is located in the Red Circle

Pictures

Specimen
Photo Credits: Eric Bonewald

Turbidity Results
Photo Credits: Eric Bonewald

Data Collected:

This data was collaboratively collected by our entire D-Block  APES Class, including data from all four days on all 6 sites.

Link To Data table

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1s3747H9VJSsDFrS-jWsZ8yYxHAkv-S30raUPGdp4gYs/edit?usp=sharing

This data table includes all of our results from the abiotic and biotic tests and observations throughout the entire lab.
To coincide with this data we also used the tallies of all the collected indivi 
duals from specific species to calculate the amount of diversity in the pond for the current year.
As shown below, all of the species are tallied up to a total, then they are multiplied by themselves minus one, to find a total that can be put through Simpson's Diversity equation to find the Diversity number.
In this case, it is 6.42.

Analysis:
Overall, the data we collected is not much different from previous years, which is good. This means that the pond's ecosystem is barely degrading, if at all. The chemical tests lead to no stunning observations, everything was fairly standard for our site. The difference in weather condition between the days had a notable affect on the air temperature and water temperature, meaning that these were impactful factors as far as the biotic data collected goes. With the data recorded we were able to calculate a diversity index for our pond, which is incredibly helpful towards the basic purpose and motivation for the lab, which was to determine its health as an ecosystem, and compare and contrast with years previous. This kind of comparison helps us have some insight to the pond's future health. While the pond's diversity has lowered slightly from the year before, it has been doing better than some years ago, in 2012, when the diversity level was 4.64. It rose back up to 6.799 in 2013, and has dropped steadily, but slowly, through 2014, into the present, 2015, where we have a 6.42. These Diversity numbers come from a calculation through Simpson's diversity index, in which one adds up the total amount of organisms, then divides it by the total number of a certain species to get "Pl" for that species. You do this for each species, then you square all of the Pl numbers, to get "PI2". Add up all of the PI2 numbers to get the total. You then divide 1 by PI2 to get you D, or Diversity. (In this case, 6.42) The large drop of diversity in the year 2012 is evident that the construction of the turf fields had a significant impact on the ponds health. Alan hinted to that, calling the little turf pellets "Nasty little devils" or something of the likes. He told us to see if they had any impact, no impact was clear cut until I looked at the diversity levels for the year of the construction of the turf fields. But thankfully our pond rose back up to at least it's old pattern of steady decline. All this goes to show that anything going on, whether it is an abiotic or a biotic factor, will have an impact on the diversity and health of the pond as a whole.

Conclusion:
As I stated before, the pond has a solid pattern of gradual decline over the past years. Except for, of course, the special occasions that have had a significant impact on the pond. Such as the turf field construction, which nearly destroyed the ponds biotic diversity in 2012. While the diversity initially rose up again after the construction, it has gone back to its old pattern of slow decline. However, we can confirm and conclude the theory that the turf has had an effect on the pond, as I'm sure years past have come to the same conclusion. I'm glad to say that the pond has risen back up to health for the most part. Another factor that could have impacted our data or the data of years past is human error, or error in calculation or chemical and electrical tests. Calculation errors made some of the data from previous years unusable, leaving somewhat of a hole in our understanding of the ponds diversity health as a whole. Another factor that could have come into play in the outcome of our data would be the conditions of the days we decided to collect data. Because of the cold blooded nature of most of the vertebrates in the pond, weather and temperature have a big impact on the activity of these animals. Due to the two cold days we had in the beginning of our lab, we might not have gotten an accurate number of vertebrates from our data collection. In the end the lab was mostly successful. We determined that the pond has suffered from certain downfalls in diversity, but tends to recover, and go back to a steady but gradual decrease in diversity, year by year.

The Spirit of the Pond

William Cox
Oct 22, 2015
APES
Alan McIntyre

The Spirit of the Pond

Day I

Alas, I could only be present in spirit that day. How fitting, due to the nature of the week, in which we celebrate our spirit by dressing up in funny ways. It was October 20th I do believe, a cold and wet day just like any other in October, but the sun never did refuse to shine over our humble class. 

We recorded some general statistics about the status of the pond and the weather. 

Water temp: 49.1 degrees F

Wind: number 2-3

Weather: Sunny but chilly

Time: 1:00

We also took sample dips into the water and caught several specimen which were recorded. We caught eight tadpoles, a frog, an aquatic worm, and a salamander.

As shown to the right. ------------------------------------------->

Day II

The second day, thankfully, I was able to be present physically as well as spiritually. We were able to collect not only general data about the setting, but also specific data about water conditions, using several chemical tests that were passed around the groups that make up our wonderful Advanced Placement class. 

Water temperature: 51.8 degrees F

Wind: #0

Weather: Overcast with clouds

Time: 11:30

Turbidity: 5 JTU

Phosphate: 1.5 ppm

pH: 6.5

We also took more samples and dips of the water, and caught several vertebrates, invertebrates, and inanimate objects. These include 1 unidentified spider, five snow fleas (or springtails), three frogs,  a water boatman, a tennis ball, and a mouthguard. Yet still no sign of the turf pellets, which is surprising taking into account the close proximity of the field to our test sight.