Using Heat to Trace
Groundwater Pollution
This
article is about a way to find pollution in groundwater using only heat. Laura
Lautz and her team are finding groundwater pollutions the way only a few teams
are, by using heat. The National Science Foundation gave them more than
$500,000 funding money for the team's efforts and work. Lautz claims that many
people are very excited about this new technology. The way they find the
pollution is by using fiber optic cable around a stream channel. Her team can
measure short heat changes and find out where sources of groundwater inflow is,
and that is where the pollution will be if there is pollution. Currently the
team is working on two different projects. The projects are in New York and
Wyoming.
Opinion
Questions
1. Do you think this is a good idea? Why?
2. Would you want more people doing this?
3. Would you want this kind of thing done around our area?
Expand on the Topic
ReplyDeleteThe article I found is about how many aquifers are being polluted in the search for natural resources that could provide energy. People tend to care more about the energy that they are getting now, instead of caring about how their water supply may be affected 50 to 100 years in the future. Aquifers and other groundwater is a very good supplier for our drinking water, and if we pollute them, they will be impossible to drink from without filtration. I think the method for finding pollution in groundwater using only heat could be very useful in the future. Once this method becomes more commonplace and readily available, it could be used to identify where polluted aquifers are and people could be more aware that they should not be drinking from those; they should only collect drinking water from pure aquifers.
`http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=poisoning-the-well-how-the-feds-let-energy-and-mining-companies-pollute-underground
Invite a Professional:
ReplyDeleteI decided to invite Hydrologist Kelly Warner. She currently is employed the University of Illinois. Her areas of expertise include ground water, statistics, and water chemistry along with several others. Not only this, but she is involved in several projects including the prediction of nitrate in private wells in the glacier aquifer system. I think her opinion would be a great addition to our blog because she is very intelligent in several areas of hydrology and ground water, which relates perfectly to what we are currently learning in class.
My e-mail to her:
Hello!
My name is Kelsy, and i I am currently a freshmen in high school. In Environmental Science class, we participate in daily blogs about current events in science. Right now, we are learning about water and how it goes through it's regular cycle and goes through underground and gets cleaned. I would like to invite you to comment on our blog, the brainy bloggers, and let us know of your opinion. You can find our blog here :http://brainybloggers101.blogspot.com/2013/04/using-heat-to-trace-groundwater.html
Thank you for your time and I look forward to hopefully hearing from you!
-Kelsy
Opinion:
ReplyDeletePersonally, I do not really see why exactly this is “revolutionary”. I understand they can now track the heat of a water source to find the potential pollution, but it seems like there are other, less expensive ways to do this. Also, they talk about how only a few groups in the country are using this new technique, because it is so new, does this mean that the old way still works? It seems like it is very expensive to do, but I may be wrong. This is interesting, but I must be missing something because I don’t understand the hubbub.
1. Can you think of any glitches this technique may have?
2. Do you think more research groups will join them in using this new technique? Why or why not?
3. Do you think this will help scientists get information about water contaminants faster and easier?
1. Do you think this is a good idea? Why?
ReplyDeleteI do think that this is a good idea since the team doing this can measure small, but significant data of where the polluted water is coming from. I’m not sure how much fiber optic equipment costs, but this does not seem to cost an enormous amount of money, which is excellent. In addition, I think it is a good idea because it is something new to our society’s technology that can eventually help and maybe make something even better in the future.
2. Would you want more people doing this?
I would want more people doing this. It is one more way to help everyone get cleaner water by tracking down where the pollution is coming from. If it is not too expensive, people might be able to conduct these types of tests in places like Africa to improve their water too.
3. Would you want this kind of thing done around our area?
As much as I like the idea, I would not want this in our area. Since these testing and observations probably require a lot of people, I would not want tons of people crowding around, testing in my town. If I really wanted to improve my town’s water significantly, I would want this done because anywhere it is done will definitely help. Until this becomes a regular test, I will be able to wait. When it does become normal, I will want this done, I just do not want the effects of a new sort of test (many people, traffic) to affect my town now.