Well I am so busy this week I just needed to blog and leave a short update so here it goes.
Our RBBR plates are going good, I had odd contamination on two plates right next to each other, it looked like I got another fungus in both plates and it was a lot! So I restarted one of the plates and so far it looks good, the other one will just have to wait to be rerun. Tomorrow we should be meeting to start some PCR on a few of our fungal strains and I am very excited about it! I will have to remember to bring my camera so we can take some photos. We also organized our master collection last week and make sure we had all our dried specimens and all our numbers in plates of growing fungi.
Joey and I are also working with another friend from the REU program on our PowerPoint presentation, all we really have left to do is add some photos and maybe a few more slides, it should look really good!
Anyways, I am very excited to leave for Florida! We leave on Tuesday and I am sure I will have a blast but I am not looking forward to missing a week of school!
Well, that's it for now I think, I should be posting another blog in a week or two.
Later!
-C
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Env290: Podcast: Feb 22, 2009
Here is my required podcast for the REU program. I hope you like it, it's not very exciting but it could only be 90 seconds long and it was the first time I made anything like this. The last month has been really busy with REU, school and softball. I haven't had a whole lot of time to blog but I promise I will be updating again this week.
Later,
-C
Monday, February 9, 2009
Frenetic Febuary
Well Hello, it's been a while.
Lab is going great, we just started our RBBR and stick plates last week and I start measuring growth on the RBBR plates tomorrow. The stick plates are normal plates that we are going to grow the fungi on, put some small sticks of wood on for the fungi to eat then take the wood off the plate and store it in vials in the fridge, this will be our master library of all our fungi. I will take some pictures of plates tomorrow and of all the smaller sticks I made out of pop sickle sticks.
Joey and I have to make a powerpoint about what we have been doing in lab this year and one of the other REU students, Lisa is going to help us out. We are both happy to have another person to help out on the workload, it's a little crazy right now.
At any rate, my main focus lately has been to keep plugging away at classes and getting ready for our softball trip to Orlando. I am going to miss four days of class when we venture down to Florida for a spring training tourney. I am not complaining about getting to visit Florida just worried about how much work I need to do before and after I get back. :s Not fun!
Besides that I don't have much to tell you, I'll just tack on a pic and call this post good! Post again soon.
Later!
-C
It was a misty day today, and it snowed so this pic seemed appropriate.
Monday, February 2, 2009
ENV 290 Op-ed #2 "Shit Happens"
We hear about Victoria, BC's impact on water quality due to sewage dumping but what are we contribute to the strait's startling amount of pollutants? Let's not forgot our rivers either. Should we be taking better care of the water quality in our local rivers? Where does all this pollution come from and how can we reduce our impact? What else can we do to help clean up our watershed? These are all questions citizens of Clallam County should be asking themselves, especially if they are not on city water. These people have been slapped with a string of new codes to follow concerning wastewater and septic systems. These codes will require many residents to replace their septic system, a big ticket item to say the least. While septic systems are normally something we try not to think about, should we be more concerned about where our wastes go?
Twenty-five percent of U.S. citizens rely on septic systems as their on-site wastewater treatment system. A large percentage of these people live in rural areas, like Clallam County, where no city water system is offered outside the city limits. The only option for rural families comes down to septic systems. These systems are fairly simple in design and have served as a reliable form of a wastewater disposal for more than a hundred and fifty years. The basic idea behind the septic system is to take gray water away from a home into a tank where, through a series of tubes, the water is released slowly into the ground. This traditional design is called a gravity fed system. While this is, for the most part, effective in areas with soft dry soil. In areas like the Olympic Peninsula where our soil is mostly clay-based and saturated most of the year, gravity fed systems have more than a few downfalls. With hard packed and saturated soil, released wastewater is not easily absorbed and so often sewage ponds form on top of septic tanks. These sewage ponds serve as breeding sites for all sorts of harmful diseases for humans and animals. And these ponds do not smell great by any means. If a gravity fed septic tank is close to a wetland or natural pond, the wastewater will naturally flow directly into these ecosystems. Not only will this contaminate that ecosystem but the waste will also be carried through creeks and into rivers eventually ending up out in the ocean. In small, slow amounts, human sewage has little impact on the environment. With a lot of outdated sewage systems throughout Clallam County, this wastewater becomes a bigger issue.
This is why Clallam County recently updated septic systems codes to require home owners to replace outdated gravity fed systems with new mound systems. These systems are larger and are built into the ground with dirt mounded on top to insure proper diffusion of wastewater. These systems also have pumps that keep tank pressure constant and control the rate of wastewater release. These systems no longer need to be placed in low spots, they can be higher or on the same level as the home and still work effectively. The soil saturation should be lower in these areas, meaning the bacteria and microorganisms that break down the sewage can work more effectively. Local codes also require new systems to be further away from wetlands and ponds than older systems. The slower the release of the wastewater, the more of it can be filtered out by microorganisms, making it safer for our creeks, rivers and ocean.
So why are some people against these new codes? It comes down to one thing: cost. Replacing an old systems is very expensive. Before you can even put a new systems in a few tests need to be taken. A perk test is a soil test that measures the amount of water saturation. Knowing this will help decide where your drain field should be put, but this test requires a soil specialist. Just having one come out to your property can be expensive. It is then necessary for a specialist to determine if there is any wetland area on your property. Using all this information, the placement of your drain field will be decided. The design, permit and approval process can take more than a year to complete.
Septic systems can be very economical and eco-friendly but up front costs are causing some people to resist. If we really care about our water quality then we need to take care of water runoff issues like outdated septic systems. It might be hard on the wallet now but if we ignore issues like this one, the real cost could be catastrophic.
Twenty-five percent of U.S. citizens rely on septic systems as their on-site wastewater treatment system. A large percentage of these people live in rural areas, like Clallam County, where no city water system is offered outside the city limits. The only option for rural families comes down to septic systems. These systems are fairly simple in design and have served as a reliable form of a wastewater disposal for more than a hundred and fifty years. The basic idea behind the septic system is to take gray water away from a home into a tank where, through a series of tubes, the water is released slowly into the ground. This traditional design is called a gravity fed system. While this is, for the most part, effective in areas with soft dry soil. In areas like the Olympic Peninsula where our soil is mostly clay-based and saturated most of the year, gravity fed systems have more than a few downfalls. With hard packed and saturated soil, released wastewater is not easily absorbed and so often sewage ponds form on top of septic tanks. These sewage ponds serve as breeding sites for all sorts of harmful diseases for humans and animals. And these ponds do not smell great by any means. If a gravity fed septic tank is close to a wetland or natural pond, the wastewater will naturally flow directly into these ecosystems. Not only will this contaminate that ecosystem but the waste will also be carried through creeks and into rivers eventually ending up out in the ocean. In small, slow amounts, human sewage has little impact on the environment. With a lot of outdated sewage systems throughout Clallam County, this wastewater becomes a bigger issue.
This is why Clallam County recently updated septic systems codes to require home owners to replace outdated gravity fed systems with new mound systems. These systems are larger and are built into the ground with dirt mounded on top to insure proper diffusion of wastewater. These systems also have pumps that keep tank pressure constant and control the rate of wastewater release. These systems no longer need to be placed in low spots, they can be higher or on the same level as the home and still work effectively. The soil saturation should be lower in these areas, meaning the bacteria and microorganisms that break down the sewage can work more effectively. Local codes also require new systems to be further away from wetlands and ponds than older systems. The slower the release of the wastewater, the more of it can be filtered out by microorganisms, making it safer for our creeks, rivers and ocean.
So why are some people against these new codes? It comes down to one thing: cost. Replacing an old systems is very expensive. Before you can even put a new systems in a few tests need to be taken. A perk test is a soil test that measures the amount of water saturation. Knowing this will help decide where your drain field should be put, but this test requires a soil specialist. Just having one come out to your property can be expensive. It is then necessary for a specialist to determine if there is any wetland area on your property. Using all this information, the placement of your drain field will be decided. The design, permit and approval process can take more than a year to complete.
Septic systems can be very economical and eco-friendly but up front costs are causing some people to resist. If we really care about our water quality then we need to take care of water runoff issues like outdated septic systems. It might be hard on the wallet now but if we ignore issues like this one, the real cost could be catastrophic.
Here is an old gravity fed tank.
Here is a new mound system tank, you can see the tank requires a pump and filter, this and the added baffle makes it much more efficient.
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