Team Blue Marsh finished up our community service work within the last few weeks! We finished up what we could with the rotting railroad ties, and from there Lauren and Lindsay worked to landscape around the community service building! We both landscaped on a beautiful day and enjoyed watching the transformation as we cleared the overgrown plants, and weeds. On Saturday April 18th, there was a community cleanup day at Blue Marsh and volunteers helped to finish the landscaping, and added mulch to finish the project!

Throughout the semester our team also researched types of Water Pollution, causes, effects, and solutions. Here is some of the data that we found:

What is water pollution?

Water pollution is any chemical, physical or biological change in the quality of water that has a harmful effect on any living organism that depends on water to survive.  Water pollution affects the entire biosphere, which include plants and organisms living in theses bodies of water. The effect is damaging not only to the individual species and population, but also to the natural biological communities.

Causes of Water Pollution:

Sewage/Wastewater: Wastewater is usually comprised of feces, urine, and laundry waste, which then runs to rivers, lakes and other bodies of water. Therefore, treating water should be a huge priority in all countries. The contaminants in untreated wastewater going to the environments in which they reside causes different types of diseases and increased health problems in these areas.

Marine Dumping: Marine dumping includes dumping litter/trash into the ocean, which obviously poses major concerns. Fish and other animals can possibly get caught or suffocated in different plastic pollutants. Marine dumping is so crucial to pay attention to because it takes about 200 years for aluminium and 400 years for different plastics to decompose in our environments.

Radioactive Waste: Radioactive waste is produced in facilities that use radioactive material and is very harmful to the environment if not disposed of properly.

Eutrophication/Farm Runoff: Eutrophication is when the environment becomes enriched with extra nutrients, which causes these nutrients to run off into the water. These nutrients in the water cause phytoplankton to grow and reproduce more rapidly, which causes increased algae blooms in the water. The algae then uses most of the oxygen in the water, which results in death of many aquatic organisms such as fish and invertebrates. The algae blooms may also block sunlight from plants living underneath.

Oil Pollution: Oil spills in oceans happen on a daily basis due to oil leaks, runoffs, and dumping. Oil spills cause many local problems where it is spilled. It can also spread and affect marine wildlife and birds miles away. Oil does not dissolve in water, therefore it creates a sludge barrier on top of the water. This coating of oil suffocates fish underneath the water surface, blocks sunlight from underwater plants, and gets in bird’s feathers, which causes the bird to be flightless.

Industrial Waste: Many industrial facilities use freshwater to carry away their waste into nearby rivers and oceans. These pollutants may include non-biodegradable materials including mercury, petrochemicals, and lead.

Storage Leaks: There are many storage tanks and a large piping networks underneath the ground that store and and move petroleum products across the country. These networks and tanks that were constructed before the 1980’s were made out of steel, which are directly exposed to the environment causing leakages. These leakages contaminate nearby soils that run off into watersheds.

Atmospheric Deposition: Atmospheric decomposition is water pollution caused by air pollution. Air pollution gets mixed with water particles in the atmosphere and when it rains these pollutants are back into the water system.

Global Warming: Surprisingly global warming is one of the causes of  water pollution. As the temperature rises on Earth, many aquatic organisms die, which disrupts all marine habitats and their respective ecosystems.Therefore global warming is an effect of different types of pollution, but also contributes to water pollution as well. It is a cause and an effect of pollution.

Effects of Water Pollution:

Whether you believe it or not water pollution affects everyone and everything in our environment including humans, animals, marine life, and the environment itself.

Humans: Contaminated water leads to water borne diseases (cholera and tuberculosis). In developed countries toxins can still be in the water supply, which can cause rashes and stomach aches.

Animals: 

Water pollutants in water can kill certain animals. These holes in the food chain leads to problems throughout the entire ecosystem. Pollutants in smaller animals that are eaten by bigger ones travels all the to the secondary consumers of these animals, which in most cases are humans.

Marine Life:

Nearly one ton of plastic waste material ends up in the ocean  every year. Much of this plastic waste is consumed by marine life that mistake it with food. Animals also get tangled and trapped in plastic bags, balloons, medical waste, soda cans, and milk cartons. Trash can cause entanglement, starvation, drowning, and strangulation.Often, toxins like mercury are released into the water, which fall to the ocean floor and are consumed by bottom feeders. When toxic materials are introduced into marine animals habitat it can cause behavioral abnormalities, cancer, lesions, death and reproductive changes.

Environment:

Pollutants travel downstream flowing into all waters and ecosystems connected to that pollution area.This promotes overgrowth of algae which can overtake the ecosystem and effect the other animals and the food chain. Every single thing we do as a human population affects our environment in some sort of way, which is why it is important to recognize our role on Earth. Therefore we should do the best we possibly can to help protect our fragile environment.

Solutions:

There are many things that each and every one of us can do to help keep our waters clean:

Conserve water by turning off the tap when running water is not necessary

Use environment friendly cleaning products

Use reusable water bottles and bags

Don’t litter and pick up litter if you see any

Be careful what chemicals or paints you rinse down the drains

Reduce amount of fertilizers and pesticides

Always recycle when possible

As far as Industrial water pollution goes, there needs to be more legislation concerning water pollution with the focus on the effects of waste on our environment.The regulations should educate these companies on how reducing waste can actually have a mutual beneficial result in the company as well as the environment.

 

Team Blue Marsh would like to thank everybody for keeping up with our blog and checking back to see what we are up to! We look forward to seeing posts from groups in the future! Thanks again from Lauren, Lindsay, Darby, and Nathan!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Team Members: Lauren Murphy, Lindsay Gay, Darby Schock, and Nathan Hoffman

Recently we sat down with Kathy, our Blue Marsh project supervisor and discussed some of the parks major contributors of water pollution. She explained that the main factors of water pollution in Blue Marsh Lake come from geese droppings, run-off from farms upstream, and park visitors. We were surprised to learn that park visitors were the least contributing factor to the parks water pollution. Blue Marsh, and private contractors test the water weekly for pollutant counts in different parts in the lake, to determine the safety of the water, especially in the swimming area. During the past few years pollution has been at a minimum, and the lake has not had any severe problems with water pollutants. However, Kathy explained that aside from geese droppings, run-off from farms upstream that use pesticides were a major problem for the lake that resulted in the closure of swimming areas. All of these pollutants caused an algae bloom which caused a drastic rise in the amount of bacteria in the lake which lead to unsafe swimming waters.

Kathy also explained that Blue Marsh controls a dam that releases cool water downstream into the Tulpehocken River to control the water temperature for trout, thus making the Tulpehocken River one of the best trout fishing destinations in the world. Trout can only live in conidtions with excellent peramiters, because of this, cold water is released downstream from the lower dam to sustain these conditions.

Here are some funny pictures from our recent adventures at Blue Marsh while we removed the rotted railroad ties.

Blue Marsh was constructed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Philadelphia District in 1974. The lake is located in Leesport, PA. The dam at Blue Marsh was authorized by Congress, and helps with flood control, water supply, water quality, and recreation. During our first meeting with Kathleen, a park ranger at Blue Marsh, she told us that when the water gets too warm in the summer for the trout population, the dam can be opened to let cool water in that will cool the entire lake down. The project’s water control practices benefit the downstream communities of Reading, Birdsboro, Pottstown, Conshohocken, and sections of Philadelphia. There are lots of activies and opportunities to get outdoors at Blue Marsh Lake. While there is currently no over night camping, visitors can enjoy hiking the 36 miles of trails Blue Marsh has to offer, or fishing in the 1,147 acres of water. Fishing can be done from the shore, or a boat. The downstream portion of the Tulpehocken Creek is one of the most popular trout fly-fishing streams in southeastern Pennsylvania. Visitors can enjoy Blue Marsh all seasons, from boating, fishing, hiking, horseback riding, and water skiing, Blue Marsh is really a lake for all seasons!

Hello! Our names are Darby, Nathan, Lauren, and Lindsay, and we are Team Blue Marsh. We are a mix of juniors and sophomores at Penn State Berks and are all Business Majors but each focus on separate programs in Accounting, Marketing, Management, and Hospitality Management. As a team, we are pairing with Blue Marsh Lake to assist in cleaning up their Great Oak Nature Trail of potentially dangerous railroad ties so visitors and camp kids are safe while hiking and exploring around the lake. We all have hobbies that take place outdoors, such as hiking, fishing, skiing, and swimming.Being outside is a big part of all of our lives and hobbies especially when the weather is nice! We are all excited to get out into the community and be able to use our time and resources to help Blue Marsh in making their parks and lake a great place for the community to come, explore, and learn about nature. Some of us have been able to go on missions trips and serve with the people of that nation; in the same way we are excited to serve in our local community and get hands on experience with the environment. We all hope to learn more about our environment and gain real world experience on the impact humans have on nature and become more aware of environmental issues in our area. We cannot wait to get outside and get involved!