Clean Water Is Everyone's Job!

  This week my group was at Malibu Beach in Dorchester! This is the only beach all summer that not one of our members has been to before. On our first day we were using air drones to get some aerial shots of the beach when the blade cut my finger. I’m fine, just needed a band-aid, but the look on my teammates faces were priceless. Anyways, our theme this week was water quality, and conveniently enough our 2019 beach season water quality report was released! Overall I was highly surprised by the results!

                                      Sam showing us how to use the drone to prevent injuries, oops. 

Being from the South Shore, there is a misunderstanding about the quality of water in Boston. Many people believe that the water closer to Boston must be more polluted than that of the South Shore, due to larger populations, and a higher probability that chemicals could end up in the water. However this is not the case. According to the 2019 Metropolitan Beaches Water Quality Report Card, beaches closer to the city like Pleasure Bay at Castle Island, Carson, and Revere scored about the same or higher than my home beach Nantasket in overall water quality. These scores are recorded by taking water samples, these samples were then tested by the standards set by the Department of Public Health. 

    This infographic explains the variation of how water runoff is spread in different types of environments

According to this report, this is the most straightforward way of evaluating the water quality of the beaches. Overall, in 2019 the average score of all beaches went down, from 94 percent to 88 percent, but it’s not time to sound the alarm just yet. 2019 overall was a highly wet year, it rained most days in the spring, which would explain the overall decline in scores. I remember on my college campus wearing rain boots everyday for two months, walking to class everyday in about 4 inches of water (they call it BridgeWATER State for a reason!) 

                    Drain cover sign that reminds people what gets in the drains goes into our oceans.

    As rain falls or snow melts, that water washes through different areas of land to reach the next accessible drainage point, which then goes into our harbors, this is Urban Runoff,  which is also why you see those plates on the ground near drains saying “protect our harbor” etc. Everything that gets into our harbors could be swept up into our water cycles, drinking water, or beaches, and by extension our bodies. This then can make an impact on our ecosystems or overall health. What they say about keeping our harbor clean is true, clean water is everyone’s responsibility! 

                        Teammate Aleena and I in kayaks on the Charles River, taken by Jasmine

Stay clean Boston! 

Caroline

EPA. “Protecting Water Quality from Urban Runoff.” Polluted Runoff: Nonpoint Source (NPS) Pollution, www.epa.gov/nps.

Constitution Beach

 Heyy everyone,

    My group and I were at Constitution Beach in Eastie this week. We worked hard to put together our video which included a game we called Invasive vs. Native to have the kids try and figure out whether a species is invasive or not. We did some sand raking and made some cool cartoon characters, used a net to catch some small fish, went swimming, played some fun games, and learned about Eastie . Overall the week was really fun and I'm going to miss that beach, the temperature was pretty perfect out there this week, and we got to see planes taking off and landing pretty close up which was really cool. 

 

         Aang The Last Airbender                                       Timmy Turner

    This week, the topic we've been discussing is water quality, which not only affects the ecosystem, but has an impact on us as well, through the food we eat, water we drink, clothes we wear and so much more, that's why it's so important to monitor it. In Boston Harbor, some challenges to maintaining that water quality is the fact that climate change brings more extreme weather and storms that reduce the quality quite a bit. According to Save The Harbor / Save the Bay the water quality of Boston beaches over all dropped from 94% to 88% because of the excessive rainfall from summer storms in 2019. Rainwater can be a carrier of bacteria, parasites, and viruses and is a big reason for the spread of some diseases, so it makes sense if there was a lot of rainfall that year that the water quality was lowered. In the same article, apparently the 2 cleanest Boston are both in South Boston (Pleasure Bay & M street), while the least clean beaches are King's Beach in Lynn and Tenean Beach in Dorchester. This may be because those beaches are still working on improving their water quality by fixing pipes and such that could be a long process that covid 19 has probably made even longer.

    There are many tests that can be taken to see the quality of water, and one of the most common ones is the pH test which measures the acidity of the water. Another common test is the nitrate and phosphate test which is a good indicator of strong plant life, but artificial nitrate and phosphate from fertilizer or sewage can be harmful. A bacteria that can be common after a large rainstorm is E. coli which is a bacterium, and when there is a high consistency of them they can indicate that the water quality is bad. They may not be harmful themselves but when there is a lot it is probable that other dangerous pathogens are also present in the water so beaches could be unsafe for swimming. There are ecosystems that can purify their own water though like forests and wetlands that can remove sediments from runoff, as well as certain animals like caddisflies that build nets that filter the water and black flies who filter with their antenna.

    I asked my dad if he remembers what Boston Harbor used to look like and though he didn't go to the beach much he does remember how dirty it was and I remember when I would ask him if we were allowed to swim in the Harbor and he said he didn't think so because of it. Compared to today, obviously we are allowed to swim there and it is a low cleaner now as the reports of water quality show. I'd post pictures of the beaches and let everyone know how great they are and tell them to go to one near them to enjoy it as much as I am.

Sea you out there,

-Jane

Citations

“Water Testing Laboratory: Water Quality Tests & Analysis.” ADE, 23 June 2019, ade.group/laboratory-analysis-water-testing/.

“E. Coli and Beach Pathogens.” Clean Lakes Alliance, 5 Sept. 2019, www.cleanlakesalliance.org/e-coli/.

Firth, Penny. “Ecosystem Services - Water Purification.” Science NetLinks, AAAS, sciencenetlinks.com/lessons/ecosystem-services-water-purification/#:~:text=Wetlands%20and%20streamside%20(riparian)%20forests,bottom%20or%20are%20filtered%20out.&text=There%20are%20many%20other%20stream%20animals%20that%20help%20filter%20the%20water.

Revere with a splash of Environmental Justice

Team Fatima and Kharliyah's weekly selfie :)

   
Hey everyone,     
     July done already? Well, time is flying and this past week my team and I explored the first public beach in the United States, Revere Beach. To start of the week, on Tuesday --the hottest day of the week-- my team and I decided to make a TikTok for our deliverable about environmental justice. In the Tiktok, you will see Kharliyah, Keren, and Keiana picking up different types of trash on the sand and in the water then throwing it where it belongs, which is the trash. After making the TikTok, we spent some time sand racking, enjoying the refreshing cold water, and avoiding any sunburn since this week was very hot with lots of sun. For the remainder of the week, we spent our time picking up more trash that we found, did some tanning while relaxing on the beach, and team bonding.

Justice for the environment :)

        Just like climate change, environmental justice is a social movement that doesn't get talked about enough, knowing how important it is in today's world! Some may think that environmental justice is making sure that the oceans are becoming cleaner, less trees are dying, and less animals are dying, which is true but there is a lot more to it. Environmental justice is securing that all people regardless of their race, color, ethnic background or income has the same rights to a clean environment and neighborhood. To me, real environmental justice and change starts at the leaders of the cities and states putting more funding into projects and policies that are going to ensure making neighborhoods cleanlier and healthier.
      One doesn't need to be an adult to know that neighborhoods in Boston need to be more taken care of, especially low-income areas. On a website I found called, Environmental Racism/Justice, A Report By The Philanthropy and Environmental Justice Research Project at Northeastern University states, "Dr. Daniel Faber, project director, says "If you live in a white community, then you have a 1.8 percent chance of living in the most environmentally hazardous communities in the state. However, if you live in a community of color, then there is a 70.6 percent chance that you live in one of the most hazardous towns." This doctor is saying that if you are living in a community of color, there is nearly a 70% chance that your community is more hazardous than a white community. That statement is completely absurd and it is 2020, not the 1800-1900s. These types of statistics shouldn't be valid anymore. All communities should have the equal amount of protection and cleanliness regardless of color and income. This is a problem that needs to be fixed now and the leaders of these areas such as state legislators, mayors, and city counselors need to make the change happen by providing more funding to policies that make sure low-income areas and communities of color are becoming cleanlier and less hazardous.
      Catch you on the water,
           Fatima Fontes :)

       Duffer Erin. Environmental Racism/Justice. https://www.arcgis.com/apps/Cascade/index.html?appid=2121227eea084b98a8eb7e2f13563bfc