Northside Park Water Quality

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Hello all!

Our group is finishing up collecting and testing water samples. Twice we collected water samples from the lake at Northside, Lincoln Marsh, and the Village Links golf course as a control. As you can tell by the pictures, it was very exciting. On the second day, we collected samples after the snowfall had melted some. So we may be able to see some effects from runoff and salting the roads.

IMG_0287 IMG_20151113_125343180

We used a pH probe to measure the different locations. Here are our average pH results over the two collection days and multiple samples:

Northside: 8.04

Marsh: 7.82

Golf Course: 802

The Northside and Golf Course pH are statistically different to the Marsh pH. So it looks like the marsh, which we expect to be cleaner, is more acidic than Northside or the golf course.

We will also have chloride and nitrate measurements coming up soon!

3 comments on “Northside Park Water Quality”

  1. ben.norton

    And by more basic, we mean more acidic (lower pH). This could be attributed to organic acid release (H+ release) by the dominant living plant matter (Mitsch and Gosselink 1993).

  3. JennySnyder

    This is so interesting! As a non-scientist, I’d love to hear more about the effects of higher acidity, and about your chloride and nitrate measurements. Thanks for the pictures, they’re fun!

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