Water Study Beach Trip by Kevin Sun ‘07

Sites we went to: (in Oyster Bay)
Roosevelt Beach
Beekman
Stream
Mill Pond
Francis Pond

Environmentalists Attending
Kevin Sun
Sarah Klass
Alex Petrossian
Vikram Chabra
Erik Arnesen

The environmentalists decided to go to visit several bodies of water on the north shore of Long Island in Oyster Bay to test the water for salinity, clarity, nitrate & phosphate content, and BOD content. The five sites we went to were Roosevelt Beach, Beekman Beach, Stream, Francis Pond, and Mill Pond. We went early in the morning during our lab period, for about ninety minutes. Sadly, Alexander Giocondi and Loren Lostritto, two classmates, were not there but were visiting colleges.
We first went to Mill Pond, where I filled some bottles with water. We then repeated this at the Stream that leads form Mill Pond, then Beekman beach at the terminal of the stream, Roosevelt Beach, and Francis Pond which is a small pond using the same watershed as the Mill Pond.

At the sites, we test for BOD content on the spot due to the urgency of gas solubility in water. BOD is “biological oxygen demand” and basically tells us how much oxygen is in the water. Oxygen in water is absorbed by animals living in the water, like fish through their gills.

We traveled to all of these sites on a small yellow school bus. It was quite comfortable though. There were some tight moments on this trip. We faced danger when we had to cross a street in order to get a water sample. It was a very risky thing to do, but environmentalists take risks; it’s what we do. On the way back, we stopped at Francis Pond and had to hike down a long trail in order to get the water sample that we needed. Alex and I risked our lives, going deep into the forest with dangerous bugs and scary shadows to obtain the sample. Again, that is what we environmentalists do!
We were thinking about heading down to McDonalds to get some well deserved grub in order to reward us for a job well done. Sadly, Mr. Abbene had a sophomore chemistry class and we were not able to go. That would’ve been such an amazing ending to a wonderful trip!

The analysis of the samples was completed in the school lab a day later. See Sarah Klass ’07 article for the results and interpretations.