Experiment A: This lab’s goal was to find out whether tap water or pond water had more tannin contamination. When tannin and chlorine combine, the resulting substance can become a carcinogen. I added a reagent in each sample of water; in this lab, the tannin reagent is used to illustrate if a solution has elevated tannin levels. If the substance has tannin, then the solution will turn blue in about 30 minutes. I used a tannin colorimeter to measure more precisely the concentration of tannin in a substance in parts per million. I expected the pond water to have more tannin because that water is not filtered through a water plant. The results came out as expected; the pond water had 2.2 ppm of tannin while the tap water had 0.3 ppm of tannin. The pond water turned blue as well. Interestingly enough, the tap water had white particles in it, but it is unclear what caused that.
Experiment B: This lab’s goal is to find out the amount of chloride in
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Water pours through underground rocks and slowly over time, the water becomes naturally cleansed. When these systems are altered and groundwater is overdrawn, contaminants can enter freshwater in many ways. Groundwater can be contaminated via saltwater intrusion, which is when sea levels are higher than aquifer water levels and salt water enters the aquifer. Salt water intrusion occurs more often when the aquifer is overused. Another way groundwater becomes contaminated is from surface runoff of other substances such as car oil, pesticides, fertilizers, and more. These problems occur more often in Miami Dade county because it is near a coast (salt water intrusion), the area is more populated (surface runoff and overdrawn aquifers), and the aquifers clean less effectively due to porous limestone (water can slip through limestone easily). This issue is important because groundwater is used by over 90% of the U.S. population - no other water resource can replace