1. How does land use affect water quality? W.A.T.E.R Bridget, Emily, and Reagan

2. How does land uses affect water quality? Some land uses like farming, recreational activities, mining, and commercial places like market places, stores and what not. All of these land uses affect the water quality in its local watershed. Pesticides are used on farms to kill any other kind of organism and insects that could risk harming their farm life. After it rains those pesticides run down in to a stream or a river that then grows into a watershed. Those pesticides will split up and kill important organisms and plant life in the watershed. Recreational activities like fairs and carnivals affect water quality. A pollutant that would affect your local water source at a fair would be toxic chemicals. Toxic chemicals could be anything you could bring to the fair like hand sanitizer, or fuel. If the hand sanitizer spills or your car was leaking in the grass parking lot than that will wash down in to a existing water source. Mining also affects water quality because of the metals, mercury, copper etc. that come out of that mining experience, those substances wash down hill as run off and affect the river or stream, or even still water places, like ponds and lakes. 0.85 of fresh water has mercury in it.

4. Compare point and non-point pollution sources Point Pollution is pollution that only comes from one source, such as a factory. One example of point source pollution is dumping waste into rivers. There is only one source, which is the pipe, that releases these horrible toxins. The pipe is point of pollution. Non-Point Pollution is pollution that doesn’t come from one specific source. One example of non-point pollution is fertilizer. When fertilizer is applied excessively or right before a rainstorm, it will eventually end up in a river or lake, which will definitely make the quality of the water bad.

6. Identify potential sources of pollution in your community One potential source of pollution in our community is fertilizer runoff. Runoff itself can be a big problem because is can contain anything from salt to harsh pesticides that have been wiped off overgrown plants. Same for fertilizer. Fertilizer contains chemicals that pollute water by making plants in the water overgrow. The plants will eventually overgrow and “take over” the water, making it unlivable for other living organisms. Fertilizer runoff will go straight to the ditches for sewers in neighborhoods, for example, whenever it rains. If you take your dog for a walk, your dog is likely to consume the toxin-filled water, which will eat away at their immune systems before they die. Then the fertilizer runoff will travel to the sewers until it reaches the nearest watershed, which for us is the Rouge Watershed. The fertilizer in the fresh batch of runoff is making the plants overgrow a little or a lot each time. This is harmful to the other organisms in the river because the plants are taking up the levels of dissolved oxygen in the watershed. Everything needs oxygen, even if it is underwater. The oxygen underwater is just dissolved. Everything in the river will eventually die and all that will be left is pollution.

8. Identify potential sources of pollution in your community. Another potential source of pollution in our community is animal waste. Animal Waste is a potential problem because of were a portion of it ends up. No animal waste goes to the water treatment center in Detroit to be turned into “Sludge Cakes”. The only way it would go there is if a caregiver for the animal flushed the waste down their toilet (Highly Unlikely). Where does the animal waste go? Well, it depends on the animal. Say it is a crayfish in the water of the Rouge River. That animal’s waste will go directly into the water, adding their portion of pollution almost immediately. The next animal is a dog. If you are taking him on a walk and he does his business in the yard right next to the road, chances are that you have a doggie bag handy. But it you don’t the waste will stay there until the next rainfall. The rain and runoff from the rain will carry the waste into the sewer, where it will eventually wind up in the Rouge. While the dog’s portion of water pollution will take a while to get to the river, it will still be a big problem. While it is near impossible that we will be able to properly dispose of the crayfish waste, we can still try to find a way to reduce the amount of land animal’s water pollution contribution. The next time we take our dogs or cats or guinea pigs on walks, we can be more aware of when they do their business so we can help protect our water.

10. What are some practices to reduce pollution? One of the main ways that you can reduce your water pollution is that you can use natural fertilizer instead of chemically based fertilizer. Another way that you can reduce the amount of water pollution is not to over water your lawns or to even water them at all. A few ways that you can reduce water in your home is that you can recycle and or dispose all trash properly. You can use nontoxic household products as often as possible. You can reduce the water pollution from your car by using recycled motor oil.

11. Water Quality Agency We discovered the Friends of the Shiawassee River that helps to protect the water quality of the Shiawassee River. They are a non-profit organization that was established in 1996. One thing we like about them is that they host annual river clean-ups to help promote the health of the Shiawassee River. We plan to contact them via email to see if they would be able to Skype or even visit our classroom for a demonstration on how to protect the river.

13. THANKS!