“You’re the solution to water pollution” was the mantra of the 16 students and four Old Rochester Regional High School faculty members on Friday, April 13, as they took a field trip to the Marion Watershed and Waste Water Treatment Plant. The majority of the students on the field trip are currently taking the Science Department elective, Environmental Interactions.
Three of the students were representing the school’s Community Service Learning Organization, and one student from Video Journalism came to film the field trip for local television. All were excited to be outside for the last school day before April vacation, and many were enthused in the community service project for the day: marking storm drains around the Marion waterfront with spray-painted stencils.
Organized by science teachers Ms. Connor and Ms. Cabral, the field trip featured two presentations, the community service project and a tour of the treatment plant. The field trip began at Marion harbor near the outfalls and rain gardens with a presentation by John Rockwell, a wetlands specialist for the Buzzards Bay National Estuary Program.
Rockwell spoke to the students about water pollution and possible solutions, explaining that the chief source of pollution is run-off that is collected in catch basins under every storm drain and then channeled to outfalls, which drain into the harbor. Rockwell surprised the Environmental Interactions students with a brief history of storm drains in the Tri-Town area, explaining that the town of Marion installed its first storm drain in 1889 shortly after paving its main roads. With the federal government’s passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972, the town of Mattapoisett connected to the lines already established in the town of Fairhaven.
“We have very strict standards for clean water,” Rockwell said to the captive students. “Whatever is in the water is in the stomach of that clam or quahog.”
Rockwell said that other changes to help stop water pollution were the introduction of holding tanks to boats, which no longer pump waste directly into Buzzards Bay. Rockwell stated that Marion tends to have more problems with water pollution than Mattapoisett because its harbor is bottlenecked.
After discussing the various kinds of pollutants and their effect on water quality and shellfish, Mr. Rockwell talked about different filtering mechanisms that are currently in use. He led the students to a rain garden near the outfalls, which filters water through the organic compounds found in mulch. Water collects in the rain garden basin, Rockwell said, and the pollutants bind to the organic molecules as the water filters through the mulch and sand beneath. The water, now purified, collects in drains a foot under the rain garden and flows to the outfalls. This solution is not perfect, though.
“Even these are a little bit out of favor because if you’re inland, there’s no run-off,” he said.
Rockwell ended his presentation by talking about current water quality standards, which require the capture of at least 50 percent of pollutants found in run-off. Dangerous pollutants include road salt, oil, nitrogen, herbicide, and pesticides from lawn care.
“It’s the things you can’t see that are causing problems,” Rockwell said about pollution. “[It’s] not the big things like coffee cups or plastic.”
Students had a few minutes to ask Rockwell their own questions about storm water. Water testing was a topic of interest. Rockwell explained that volunteers test the water in Buzzards Bay throughout the summer season for pollutants such as nitrogen, and the Massachusetts Board of Health is required to test the water at beaches every two weeks for bacteria. Shellfish beds, however, are only tested once every couple of years.
Rockwell said that he was happy to be given an opportunity to address the Old Rochester Regional students. “I’m trying to pass my knowledge on to the next generation,” he said.
In the next phase of the field trip, the students watched a demonstration of a smoke test. As Ms. Connor explained ahead of time, smoke tests are a technique used to identify which storm drains are connected to an outfall. The smoke tests can also identify breaks in the lines.
In a smoke test, a storm drain is covered with a smoke machine. The smoke comes out the attached outfall (as well as the other storm drains that share that outfall and catch basin.) Students took turns watching the outfall for smoke and watching the road crew operate the smoke machine.
Then, students were given yellow safety vests, brooms, and spray paint so that they could go to work marking the storm drains around the Marion waterfront. Working in four teams of four, the students identified roughly 19 storm drains in an hour.
The stencil the students were using was a creation of senior Leah Saunders, who is currently taking the Environmental Interactions class. Her design turned the phrase “You’re the solution to water pollution” into a fish, with the tail being formed out of the shared letters in the words “solution” and “pollution.”
One of the volunteer painters, another student from Environmental Interactions, thinks the stencils will deter Marion residents from being careless with the storm drains. Senior Martha Nakashian, said she was participating in the project “so people know that if they don’t want poop or fertilizer in their water where they swim and do their activities, they had better not dump anything in the drain or near the drain.”
The field trip ended later that afternoon with a tour of the wastewater treatment plant. Students were given the opportunity to look into the different tanks as raw sewage water was filtered and sterilized in a five-step process. Students were able to see the control room, where the assistant plant manager showed the computer programs and historical trends in Marion sewage flow (yes, it increases during the Super Bowl.) The lab technician at the plant also took students into his laboratory, where he described the different tests he runs on samples of the end product.
Students also were able to visit the plant’s farm animals, which consisted of a llama, four goats, two ducks and numerous chickens. These animals are given free range of the wastewater lagoons (excess waste water that is waiting for treatment) in order to keep the vegetation to a minimum. After that, it was back on the bus and back to school.
T-shirts with the stencil design are in the works for the 16 students who undertook this community service project.
By Anne Smith