Whitmore Strawberry Farm Lab Report

In this lab my group and I learned about what type of test to conduct when determining a pollution source. I predicted that the Whitmore Strawberry Farm was producing the pollution that was causing algal blooms to form in the lake. The farm used a combination of organic and commercial inorganic fertilizers, which could have been the pollutant. The Whitmore Strawberry Farm was not the source of the pollution, the source was the Emerald Estates. Emerald Estates was above sample 1348 (D); they have “strict regulations regarding the appearance of houses and lawns. Most lawns in the neighborhood maintained by professional landscapers who use a variety of fertilizers…” To start off, Emerald Estates water sample did not produce a light during the conductivity lab. On the other hand, Emerald Estates had a lot of phosphates and nitrates in their water sample. In Figure 5 it shows how they had 0.05 ppm of phosphates and 3.5 ppm of nitrates. …show more content…
Also, the saturation of the Emerald estates water sample was 47%, which is poor. The dissolved oxygen level is low because as decomposers metabolize the dead algae, more and more oxygen out of the water. If people would fish in Lake Carson there would most likely be little to no fish, because fish need oxygen and if there is little oxygen then the fish will die. Furthermore, if you look at Figures 16 you will see that the Emerald Estates water sample had a poor macroinvertebrate rating. The reason being is that their sample consisted of mostly moderately tolerant and tolerant macroinvertebrates (see Figure 17). In conclusion, everything written above are all pieces of evidence that point to Emerald Estates being the source of the pollution causing algal blooms to grow in Lake Carson. Emerald Estates polluting the water needs to stop, and an action needs to be taken to prevent the algal bloom from growing even