ABOUT MY FIRST PROJECT 

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to investigate if it is safe to swim in the LaHave River and if not, why not?

 

Hypothesis

It is safe to swim in the LaHave River.

 

Background

I decided to test the LaHave River for fecal bacteria because I wanted to see if it still has a lot of poop in it.  Recently I found out that there are a lot of straight pipes in our river.  They are awful and gross!  Can you believe that people actually flush their toilets directly into the LaHave River and this is allowed to happen?

Actually, it really shouldn’t happen because straight pipes are ILLEGAL!  A lot of people think they are allowed to keep their straight pipes because they are ‘grandfathered in’.  This is not true.

There was a study completed in 1993,  “The Porter Dillon Report.”  The study determined that there were approximately 800 houses with straight pipes at that time.  We know there are less now, but no one really knows how many of these pipes still exist.

The Bluenose Coastal Action Foundation has been testing the river for many years now.  I was shocked to see their results.  It was bad!  I decided to ask Dr. David Maxwell to help me test my river for fecal bacteria in four locations that I saw people swimming in, including my brother.

The four locations are:

1. Shipyards Landing in Bridgewater where many people put in their boats and are often in the water.

2. Dayspring at another boat launch where I also saw a lot of people in the water with their boats.

3. In front of my house in Upper LaHave where we are often getting wet.

4. The LaHave River Yacht Club where my brother went to sailing school 

I want a clean river and to let people know about our rivers health.  Is our river an environmental disaster?  Is it dangerous?

 

Method – What I did:

Before I could get any water samples Dr. Maxwell and I sterilized bottles.  We did this by heating our bottles in a pressure cooker for 15 minutes with 15lbs. of pressure.  By doing this, all of the germs were killed and we had sterilized bottles.  Next, I put on my rubber boots and mom drove me to my four locations to get water samples.  To get the samples, I attached the bottles to a long pole, removed the cap (without touching the inside which could cause contamination) and waded out into the water until I couldn’t go any farther in my rubber boots.  I reached out with the stick and put the end with the bottle approximately 30 cm under the surface of the water.  Once I got all four samples, I did the testing in my kitchen using a filter funnel, filters and enterococci cards, I did my testing with Dr. Maxwell.  We made sure to sterilize all the equipment and used rubbing alcohol on possible contaminated surfaces.  We used 100ml of water for most of the testing samples, but because of high enterococci levels in a few locations, we only used 20ml. 

When we got the water sucked through the filters, we put them on the enterococci testing cards and put the cards in an incubator for 36 hours.  Once the time was up, we took out the cards and there were blue dots to count.  Each blue dot is a colony of enterococci (poop).

I tested each location three times so far.  To keep my testing consistent, I chose to take all my samples at low tide.  The first time I tested the water on November 27, 2015, it was after a lot of rain.  The second time I tested the water on December 10, 2015, it was after a week without rain.  The third time I tested the water on January 3, 2016, it was after a few days without rain and colder temperatures.

 

Results - What I found:

From my testing results, I found that none of my locations are safe for swimming.  Some of my locations had extremely high results that were way above the limits safe to even get the water on your skin.  This is very scary.

Please see the chart on the poster for further information.

 

Interpretations – What my results mean:

My results suggest that the river is VERY unhealthy and it does have a lot of fecal contamination.  This leads me to believe that there are still a lot of straight pipes contaminating our beautiful and loved river.

 

Limitations – What else may explain my results:

Enterococci is poop from warm blooded animals only.  This means that fish and eel poop would not be detected in my testing.

The results could be from run off from farms and ponds.  To make sure this isn’t the cause, I tested after rainfall and again without rain.  Both tests suggest that the level does change a bit, but not enough to say that runoff is the main reason for the fecal contamination.

Some people suggest that the water temperature affects the levels.  Based on the results of the Bluenose Coastal Action Foundation and my fall/winter testing, the fecal bacteria numbers still remain very high.

Also, to make sure the blue dots are enterococci I tested samples from in front of my house.  Then I sterilized the river water in a pressure cooker and tested the water.  The test results concluded that indeed the blue dots were enterococci because the river water didn’t show any blue dots.  People have also questioned if the water treatment water facility plant in Bridgewater is working.  I have been told that this facility is working well.

 

Conclusion:

Based on my testing results, I have determined it is unsafe to swim in the LaHave River.  My testing also suggests getting the water on your skin can be dangerous to your health according to Health Canada Standards.  My limited resources make it difficult to prove conclusively that straight pipes are the problem, but my results show that there are high levels of fecal contamination and my findings suggest this is a serious problem that is beyond a kid’s science project.  I find it gross that there are straight pipes.  Even one pipe flushing into the river is not ok.  They need to be eliminated.  Overall, more testing should be completed by government organizations to determine the cause of fecal contamination in the LaHave River.  In the meantime, I recommend finding another place to swim.