Below is an article that was written by a 7th grade student at Hazen Union Middle School after participating in our Stream Monitoring and Stewardship Program during the spring of 2014. This article was posted in the Science Hardwick Gazette paper for the whole community of Hardwick to enjoy!
7th Grade Eaton Brook Water Quality
Has anyone ever wondered how healthy Eaton Brook is compared to the Lamoille River? Well we wanted to know so we went straight to Eaton Brook and the Lamoille River to find out how has human activity affected the water quality and health of Eaton Brook and the Lamoille River. We did a physical assessment, chemical monitoring, and the Benthic Macroinvertebrate sampling. For the Lamoille River we looked at the land use, vegetation, stream habitat, and the human impacts. We saw that the Lamoille River has fair water quality and Eaton Brook has good water quality. We found that Eaton Brook was healthier because it’s smaller and it is not in the middle of the whole town.
We found that there wasn’t a single water treatment plant on Eaton Brook but there was one on the Lamoille River. We also found that there were pipes leading into the Lamoille River and not Eaton Brook. Finally we found that roads cross bridges over streams and not Eaton Brook. We found a lot of BMI’s in Eaton Brook like the Stonefly Nymph and the Mayfly Nymph.
To help the Lamoille River we could plant small shrubs along it since we can’t move the roads. We could also try to move the pipes that go into the river. Finally we could plant trees on the side of the river to keep the river cool and keep that Dissolved Oxygen up! I would like to thank the UVM Watershed Alliance for working with us and teaching us a lot of cool things to help our local waterways!
