High school senior Liana Carney takes water samples last November from groundwater at the Volunteer Park trail as part of a fecal coliform study conducted by students in the Rural Alaska Students in One-Health Research program.
The students who participated in the research project were, from left, Killian Booker, Devlyn Campbell, Liana Carney, Brodie Gardner and Kiara Harrison.
A group of high school students delved into scientific research while earning college credits as part of the Rural Alaska Students in One-Health Research (RASOR) program.
The University of Alaska Southeast has been running the program for the past three years to highlight environmental issues that can affect human health. This year, Wrangell students decided to research problems with dog waste getting into ground water along the Volunteer Park trail.
According to the presentation submitted by the five students, they hypothesized that the water samples they planned to collect along the trail would have a higher amount of fecal coliform bacteria than an area that wasn't frequented by dogs.
Many different health issues can arise from water that has been polluted with animal fecal matter, including cholera, gastroenteritis and E. coli. Kim Wickman, who is the mentor for the RASOR class, said water catchment systems, if not regularly cleaned and maintained, could be at risk for fecal coliform contamination.
"Coliforms can be present anywhere you might find fecal matter, whether it's a dog, a bird, a beaver," Wickman said. "People have catchment systems and anything that's on their roof can be washing into their water treatment tanks." Anyone who lives past 6 Mile has some sort of water treatment system, since there is no borough water pipeline beyond that, she said.
Problems with dog waste at Volunteer Park have been ongoing for many years, and Parks and Recreation Director Kate Thomas said her crew works hard to keep that park and others poop-free. She said they also try to prevent the problem through education.
"Volunteer Park is the particularly challenging location because dogs get to get out and freely roam the main areas," Thomas said. "It's been a big problem for the Little League community."
Thomas said there are approximately 570 dogs on the island and, while most people are responsible and clean up after their pets, "there are the legitimately irresponsible people."
The RASOR students, senior Liana Carney and juniors Kiara Harrison, Brodie Gardner, Devlyn Campbell and Killian Booker, along with Wickman and teacher Heather Howe, collected water samples over three weeks last November from four different sites - three along the Volunteer Park trail and a control site on Spur Road they reasoned wouldn't be frequented by dogs.
It was their expectation that they would find more fecal coliform in the three sample sites around the trail than they would at the control site.
"Our hypothesis was not supported because our control site has as many as or more fecal coliforms than our other sampling sites," Harrison said in the presentation the group made in April along with groups from Sitka, Petersburg and Craig. She said it was possible the coliforms detected were from geese found at the control site.
"The next step would be to take samples from water clearly contaminated with fecal coliform," Gardner said during the presentation. "We could also repeat tests at different times of the year to account for weather cycles and amounts of trail use."
Ellen Chenoweth, of UAS, the RASOR program director, said it's not uncommon that the hypotheses aren't supported through research.
"It's probably the most common result we get from these types of studies because they're trying something new," Chenoweth said. "Their discussion session is used to look at why the hypothesis doesn't work out. They were in a site where there was a lot of bird activity. The trail section was more covered and the control site was in the open."
Harrison said the study didn't necessarily show what the group wanted it to, but it was a learning experience nonetheless.
"We learned how to do all the (testing) processes and if we were to (test again) we would have it down pretty well," Carney said. If they could prove there were more coliform bacteria in the trail sites, she said they would hope the results would encourage the public to put more effort into cleaning up after their pets.
Through Parks and Recreation's efforts to educate people and the RASOR group's research, Thomas said public awareness is growing and the problem is improving.
"When you have students in particular targeting these issues, adults pay attention to it and the effect on our recreation areas," Thomas said.
Reader Comments(0)