The Importance of Water's Flo(w) Quality

                                                                                                                        August 11, 2019 

Hello. I’m back........and I’m better than ever. So this week's topic is about water quality and how important it is to keep the water clean for both the environment and human consumption. Water is removed and recycled into the environment daily so keeping it clean is a priority. This week, my crew and I worked at Blacks Creek in Quincy and the Curley Community Center in South Boston. We interacted with the kids through lessons, fishing, and games. 

 One challenge that I see in the harbor is keeping it clean from trash and other items that people ignorantly throw into the harbor. Over time, chemicals and other hazardous substances may seep from the thrown items and enter the harbor. This makes the water unsafe for drinking and swimming for us humans and the sea animals. This downgrades the quality of the water and eventually, if we do nothing to stop it, the harbor will resort to what it was 50 years ago.  Preserving the water's condition is crucial to the life within it and for our benefit too. For example, the instrument that I'm using with the kids in the picture on the right is called a refractometer and it's used to calculate the saltiness of the water. This is important to understand if the water is safe enough for the fish to breath or for humans to swim in.

 When water leaves one's home, it goes down drains and pipes into the sewers and enters a central sewage system where it goes to a plant that treats, cleans and filters it for reusing and reapplication in the world instead of just throwing it out and disregarding it forever. Turbidity,  temperature, flow rate, dissolved oxygen, and pH are some of the tests used to determine water quality. Each test checks for the water clarity, its temperature how fast it flows, the oxygen molecules dissolved in it, and the acidity or basic levels of the water, respectively.

 Most of the plant ecosystems contribute to natural purification of water where, for example, the roots of the plants in the water naturally defuse water within its cells to keep the water clean for other uses.

In the past,  many have said that the harbor was beyond disgusting. It was a dumpsite for everyone’s trash in the area to the point where you could walk across the harbor without getting your feet wet because it was saturated with trash and other neglected items. However, the residents of Boston have committed funding and energy to get the harbor cleaned. Years later here we are now, with the body of water being one of the cleanest urban harbors in America and we must continue to fulfill the promise for the better part of the country. I’m going to live up to helping keep the earth clean and safe for everyone so that we do not have to worry about the water getting destroyed or climate change. 

Thanks for putting up with the quality of my blog!

See you next year.....maybe.

Flo!