Determining Water Quality

There are several things to test to determine water quality such as nitrates, pH, conductivity, turbidity, dissolved oxygen, temperature, alkalinity, and E. coli. Each thing tested, directly affects one another.

http://fishandboat.com/images/fisheries/afm/2004/4_07-19sgl_trout.htm

Nitrates measures the amount of nitrogen (in it's several different forms) in a water body. For some plants and algae nitrogen is essential to help them grow or reproduce. With too little, plants wont grow and so there's not enough dissolved oxygen in the waterbed. With too much, plants can over grow and not allow enough sun through the water.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2007/4/review

pH tells the water's acid content. The pH scale ranges from 0.0 to 14.0 and shows how acidic or basic water is. 7.0 is neutral, anything greater than that is basic and anything less is acidic. If a waterbed is too basic or acidic the fish in that water will die. pH controls most processes that take place in the water, whether chemical or biological because every organism has a different level of pH it can tolerate.

http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/ph.html

Conductivity is testing if water can conduct an electrical current. Pure water will not conduct unlike water full of particles.

http://www.trakindo.co.id/website/pages/product-support/sos/laboratory-facilities.php

Turbidity is the measurement of how clear water is. This is important because the amount of turbidity directly effects how far and how much sunlight reaches in the water. Sunlight fuels plants photosynthesis and how ever far sunlight reaches determines how far plants can grow. These plants provide oxygen through the water. The more sunlight the more plants, the less sunlight the less plants. There are two ways to measure turbidity, a Secchi disk (for deep still waters) or a transparency tube (shallow and flowing waters).


http://www.herald-dispatch.com/news/x87591212/HHS-students-teach-science-to-fourth-graders?i=0

Dissolved oxygen is super important because fish need to breathe much like humans and other animals, and they need oxygen to do so. The amount of dissolved oxygen in water determines what can live there as different plants and animals require different amounts of oxygen to survive. Solubility is the measurement of dissolved oxygen and is affected by temperature (cold water dissolves more oxygen), atmospheric pressure (less pressure, less oxygen), salinity and what lives there. Plants add oxygen through photosynthesis into water.

http://www.herald-dispatch.com/news/x87591212/HHS-students-teach-science-to-fourth-graders?i=0

 Temperature is easy to measure but super important. It affects everything, what lives there, dissolved oxygen, pH, conductivity, etc. Plus it gives a good insight to weather patterns, local and global.

http://www.pondpets.com/pondtemp.htm

Alkalinity is a water bodies ability to neutralize acids. This is important because aquatic life is sensitive to acid. The better the alkalinity the better the water quality is.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2007/8/review

Mountain Top Removal Should Stop

Mountain Top Removal is slowly destroying West Virginia. There used to be mountains, healthy streams, a feeling of safety in West Virginia but with every mountain that is blasted down, those things disappear.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-rose/the-last-mountain-new-doc_b_875689.html

Mountain Top Removal is when tops of mountains are blasted out to get to a coal seam. These seams are more often than not, very small. The blasting is dangerous and annoying by itself. Rubble can go flying into the nearest community, hurting people and destroying homes. Plus the shanking from the blasts destroys foundations, again wrecking homes. Blasting occurs at all hours of the day, so if you have a kid, good luck getting them to sleep at a reasonable time.

http://www.mountainjusticesummer.org/facts/steps.php

Once the coal seam is reached the rest of the removed mountain is moved into valley fills. These valleys are homes to several animals and are where many streams originate. The animals are forced to move or die and streams are blocked off in that area. What little water is left in those streams are contaminated and cause people to get sick. There have also been mutated fish found in these waters. Imagine if the water is messing up the fish what it can to do a fetus, which is more susceptible to harm than an adult.  

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/rperks/time_magazine_turns_attention.html

Coal Companies would have everyone believe that coal is good for our state. Coal is, after all the big money maker in our state. Coal Companies say they are creating jobs, jobs that are safer. They say they are using reclamation to bring back what was once here in West Virginia.

http://ohiocitizen.org/opposition-to-mountaintop-removal-coal-mining-solidifies-since-april-1/

But what they don’t tell you is that “safer” is just the miners not having to go underground because of Mountain Top Removal and that machines are actually taking over in the mining industry. Fewer and fewer miners are needed. So the jobs created are to operate these machines but that only takes one or two people. Hundreds of miners are what used to be used for the job a machine does.

http://ilovemountains.org/resources

Reclamation is another thing Coal Companies try to pass off as something good. They only show the few successes they have and make it seem that that’s how it always happens. They don’t show people that most of the time they just plant grass, or that the trees they grow are unhealthy. They definitely don’t tell people that they plant trees that aren’t native to the area and expect them to grow. They also don't tell how the little bit of grass or trees they plant don't stop erosion or flooding.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nationalmemorialforthemountains/4534742719/

Coal Companies biggest argument is that coal is what brings money into West Virginia. Well West Virginia is running out of reachable coal. Soon there won’t be any coal left, what will bring in the money then? And if coal is such a big money maker, why is it the communities sending out the most coal are the poorest in West Virginia. Plus the entire world is slowly moving to other energy sources, what will happen when they stop using coal all together. The Coal Companies have no answers for these questions, and they are not the answer for West Virginia.