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Susquehanna River Lab Report Sample

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Hello! I’m William Westhafer and this is our creek. The Conodoguinet Creek is a 104-mile-long tributary of the Susquehanna River in South Central Pennsylvania. The part we visited is located at Acri Meadows park in Enola. My hypothesis is that if we test for pollution, then we will find small levels. There are two types of pollution common in our area, eutrophication and acid rain. Eutrophication is nutrient pollution from things like fertilizer. Fertilizers are used to aid the growth of plants, but are very harmful to water quality. Rain can wash away this fertilizer, draining it into nearby streams. The fertilizer accelerates algae growth, blocking light to good plants on the bottom. The bacteria population increases due to the new food source created by the algae. Most of the oxygen …show more content…

The water flowed nicely down the creek, turbulent in places to add dissolved oxygen to the water. We did see some algae on the surface of the creek, which could mean there is some nutrient pollution. I also saw some pollution such as this tire. One of the first things we did is look for macroinvertebrates. Our group found 11 group 1 organisms, 4 group 2 organisms, and 11 group 3 organisms. Overall there were 466 group 3 organisms, 288 group 2 organisms, and a massive 466 group 1 organisms. Having such a large number of group 1 organisms is already a sign of good water quality.

Phosphates and nitrates can be measured to identify eutrophication. As a group, we found an average of 0.3ppm for phosphates and 0.8ppm for nitrates. Ppm stands for parts per million, also known as mg per liter. These numbers can tell us a lot. First off, the creek is not free of pollution, but is in good condition considering numbers can be much higher. With high dissolved oxygen levels averaging around 11.4, the creek probably has low levels of bacteria, and fast moving, turbulent water. High water temperature can also decrease dissolved oxygen

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