Lab: Water Quality

ESS CLASS SET Lab: Water Quality

Introduction: On the AP test you may need to come up with some possible tests that you could do on a water sample. You should also understand where each pollutant comes from, and what each of these tests indicates about overall water quality. In today’s lab you will perform various tests and use the results to figure out where each sample is from. Pre-Lab Questions: (Use the booklet that came with the testing kits) 1. What are coliform bacteria? If it can’t make us sick, why would we test for it? (page 10) 2. What type of waste is low dissolved oxygen associated with? What is happening to the oxygen? (page 17) 3. What is water hardness? Where does it come from? (page 20) 4. How is acid rain formed? What is damaged by acid rain? What is the optimum pH for most organisms? (page 26) 5. What is thermal pollution? What can it affect? How is thermal pollution related to dissolved oxygen? (page 30)

Table 1: Indicators of Water Quality Indicator Test 1 Test 2 Test 3 Camarillo Camarillo NP filtered Arrowhead NP NP Creek Softened backyard water from Bottled Sprinkler Water and Filtered hose bottle filing Water Water (Borchard Park) Water station Temperatur e (C)

Coliform bacteria (pos/neg) Chlorine (DP4 tablets) (ppm) Copper (ppm)

Dissolved Oxygen (DO) (ppm) Total Hardness (ppm)

Iron (ppm)

Nitrate (ppm) pH

Phosphate (ppm)

Turbidity (JTUs)

Discussion: Using your lab results and some further research answer the questions below.

Test 1:

1. What is a water softener supposed to do?

2. Based on your results is this water softener doing its job?

3. What are some potential concerns about extra hard water? (Do a little research)

4. What are some potential benefits of having a little hardness to your water (Do a little research think micronutrients)

5. What are most household filters designed to remove? (Do a little research)

6. Based on your experimental evidence and opinions, is installing a household filter and softener worth it? (An average water softener install costs about $1,000)

Test 2:

1. Based on your experimental evidence, is there any benefit to buying bottled water over using a refillable bottle at one of these filling stations?

2. At target a package of 24 Arrowhead water bottles has a cost of $4.00. How much is that per bottle?

3. The average cost of a decent reusable water bottle is $15.00. How many times would you need to use it before you actually start saving money?

4. Based on just economics alone, do YOU think a reusable water bottle is a good purchase?

5. Based on economics and the environment etc. do you think reusable water bottles are worth it?

Test 3:

1. Were there any major differences between the creek water and the sprinkler water? What were they?

2. The creek is feed by run-off. Explain why it is so dirty and if this is an example of point source or non-point source pollution.

3. The safe drinking water act requires that all water that come from a tap be drinkable. To ensure this something is added to the water to make sure there is no bacteria. What do you think that is, and was there any evidence of this in your sprinkler water?

4. The creek always tests positive for coliform bacteria. What are these, and what type of pollution does a positive test indicate? (Use proper vocabulary)

5. What affect can the topic in question 4 have on DO? Explain how this happens

Review for Test (These are questions to help you prepare for your test but they do not need to be written out and turned in with the rest of the lab) 1. On the awesome picture below (it’s a river) draw a line to represent dissolved oxygen levels. Label the oxygen sag curve

2. Compare rivers, lakes, groundwater, and the ocean in their ability to breakdown and dilute pollution. Which are most susceptible to the negative effects of pollution?

3. Where does most ocean oil pollution come from?

4. What is the great pacific garbage patch? What is the most abundant material in it? Explain what happens to this stuff after it is out in the sun for a long time. 5. Describe cultural eutrophication in detail. Could any of the pollutants we tested lead to this problem? Which ones?

6. What are the 2 most common ways to indirectly check for water pollution?

7. List and describe the irrigation practices we have gone over. List them from least to most sustainable.

8. How can more efficient irrigation reduce non-point source pollution?