My project was going to be on the DDT levels in the waters of the Indian River Lagoon. Some of you might know Volusia/ Brevard county is "renovating", for lack of a better term, the Indian River area. By renovating they are destroying mangrove trees and either burying them in the river or just cutting them down. These trees are very old which means when the United States used to use DDT back in the '40s, '50s and '60s, before being banned in the '70s, these trees absorbed the chemicals through the water and other ways and since DDT has a half life of 150 years it stayed in the trees until now, since they're being cut down that DDT is leaking back into the water and possibly affecting the marine life of that area. Now to explain what DDT is, it is a very powerful pesticide used primarily in Florida to control the Mosquito population back then but the EPA later banned it from use in 1972 because of the affects on Marine life.
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| An Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane molecule or DDT for short |
So with all that said the question I wanted to answer was: Are the DDT levels rising again in the Indian River Lagoon and could the mangrove trees be the cause of this? Doing a quick search on the Daytona State Library I found the last paper written about this was in 1980 which even include a method they used to test the sample which is much safer than the other method of digesting the sediment with extremely harsh acids. While searching I also found a DDT fact sheet both of which I will include the links to here:
DDT fact sheet
1980 DDT research
*I'd include the sources they cited but its about two pages long
If I can't do this research I will need to come up with a new research idea and I am totally open to listening to any of my classmates!
Augustus--regardless of your struggles, you always do a great job! This post is no exception. When I ask you what are your interests--what I'd like to know is...what is your interest in the environment (not your major). Does water quality interest you? Is there an animal that grabs your attention? Or are plants your thing? You think you might like to be a scientist--what kind of scientist do you see yourself being? In the lab/field? If we can narrow your environmental science interests--I think that would help. Let's keep thinking...
ReplyDeleteI do believe that I am interested in most of those things you listed. The reason I’m drawn to this particular project is it makes an impact on all those categories, water quality, marine organisms and aquatic plants. As for specific environments I prefer Rivers over oceans since I grew up on one and if you can consider space an environment than I’m really interested in that as well. I always imagine myself spread out between a lab ad the field, unfortunately since engineering was always my career path I see myself doing engineering tasks.
DeleteIt's absolutely horrific, the images of the effects on bird's eggs still haunt my mind, I was only a kid.
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