OSCAR PEREC Summer Team Project 2017
Today was the first day of our OSCAR PEREC Summer Team Project 2017! In other words, the Office of Student Scholarship, Creative Activities, and Research at George Mason University partnered with the Potomac Environmental Research and Education Center to support a group of six students (including myself) in our efforts to gain experience in undergraduate research.
The majority of our first day consisted of a crash course overview of the history of PEREC's Gunston Cove ecosystem monitoring project that began in 1984. The purpose of this study was to document the ecological status of Gunston Cove as it began to shift from a hypereutrophic system (i.e., super nutrient rich) overrun by phytoplankton and algal blooms to a healthy system dominated by submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV). In addition to this history lesson, each of our advisors presented an overview of their own research to give us an idea of the resources we have available to us while working on our own projects this summer. In order to efficiently execute our overall study, our student team of six is split into four smaller, topic-specific teams as follows:
Chemistry Team
Tabitha King
Lisa McAnulty
Advisors: Dr. Tom Huff, Dr. Greg Foster
Ecology Team
Myself (Sammie Alexander)
Michael Rollins
Advisors: Dr. Kim de Mutsert, Dr. Amy Fowler
Human Dimensions Team
Heather Nortz
Advisor: Dr. Dann Sklarew
Outreach Team
Chelsea Gray
Advisor: Dr. Cindy Smith
So, you may be wondering, what IS the larger project? We will work to illustrate the movement of micropollutants throughout two Potomac River tributary ecosystems - Gunston Cove and Hunting Creek. Second question, why these locations? Well, each location is downstream of a wastewater treatment plant, meaning that each location is more susceptible to receiving pollutants from the effluent (i.e., water released back into the river from the treatment plant after processing). The AlexRenew water treatment plant is upstream of Hunting Creek and the Noman M. Cole, Jr. water treatment plant is upstream of Gunston Cove. In order to understand the health of the system as a whole, as it pertains to micropollutants, our four teams will focus on four specific topics as follows:
The Chemistry Team: will investigate the presence of 77 different micropollutants (focusing on pharmaceuticals (antidepressants, blood pressure medicines, pain relievers, etc.) and personal hygiene products (sunscreen, antibacterial soaps, etc.) in the water, sediments, fish, and macroinvertebrates residing in two Potomac River tributaries, Gunston Cove and Hunting Creek.
The Ecology Team: will assess the potential threat of these pollutants to the macroinvertebrate and fish community at each location by constructing a food web, based on stomach content of the species collected in our seine nets, fyke nets, and otter trawls.
The Human Dimensions Team: will investigate the sources of the point and non point source micropollutants in these tributaries.
The Outreach Team: will help the general public understand how the three previously stated projects tie in to one another, as well as how the projects tie into their daily lives.
This is the first investigation of micropollutants in the upper Potomac River of this caliber. In a sort of cradle-to-grave fashion, our project will identify the presence and quantity of 77 micropollutant, the sources and drivers of the pollutants, and the potential routes in which they may travel throughout the ecosystems in our local waterways. I am proud and excited to be a member of this team, and cannot wait to see what this summer has in store!