*This article is published on behalf of the Mount Mansfield Union High School Crew and was written by MMU intern Thomas Cude.

Here at the VYCC we spent our last three days of May working on a watershed project with UVM students Nikki, Amanda, and Polly. We spent our sunny afternoons measuring and collecting data on the Winooski River. We tested the pH, dissolved oxygen level, temperature, and clarity. We also determined how much pollution was currently in the river by collecting BMI samples. Benthic Macro Invertebrates (BMI) Are tiny bugs that you can see with the naked eye that have no spine and live on the river bed. These BMI samples indicated how polluted the Winooski River was from how resilient the BMI’s were.

For instance, we found a lot of mayflies in the river. This is good because mayflies have a very low tolerance for pollution and, as a result, we determined that the river is not very polluted. One of the main reasons we test the water for signs of pollution is because if a river, pond, or body of water is too full of phosphorous it will over grow the blue-green algae (which is already a problem) and reduce habitat for the aquatic wild life.

Phosphorous is found in feces, soap, and lawn chemicals. These items run off of our farms, lawns, and back yards into our rivers and lakes. This poses a big problem because phosphorous reduces how much oxygen is available and present in the water, which then makes it difficult for aquatic wildlife to thrive.

Thanks UVM for making the end of May a good one. It was a fun and informative outside experience. Learning about how pollution affects our ecosystem, and how to collect data that tells us whether or not a river is polluted, is great to know.