Chapter Six: And You Thought Dinosaurs Went Extinct (feat. Melanie, Jeff, Jamie, Bryden, Sabrina)

Do you obsess over dinosaurs? I know plenty of people that went crazy over the Jurassic Park series, especially Jurassic World, to the point of religiously playing that Jurassic World iPhone game. But me? I never got into it. Even then, you can probably imagine how surprised I was to walk into the lab and find a real-life dinosaur this morning. Guess what type of dinosaur it was? T-rex? Nope. Stegosaurus? Try again! I don't know any other dinosaurs... I give up. Good choice, because on the path you were on, you never would have guessed.

I walked into the lab this morning and found Windows 3.1 running on a computer that's older than me. I mean, honestly, I was so surprised, because this computer was so far in the past. It was doing a really convincing Bayer impression. Like, this computer was really, really old.

On a serious note, I did a bit more of the same in the lab this past week, not including an incredibly cool development in my water research. Besides creating a couple new standardized trays, I washed and sorted some trays so that they could be available for use. This entailed me grabbing some thick gloves, mixing a tiny bit of potent cleaner into a ton of tap water, and scrubbing like mad.

The trays start out in a bucket, with all the tape ripped off and thrown away.

The trays get dipped into the bottom tub, which is full of soapy water, get scrubbed, and then get transferred to the top tub, which is full of regular tap water.

The fun part of the process: to wash the soapy/tap water out of the trays, we use an eyewash. It hooks up to tap water, but it outputs pressurized water, pushing all of the gunk out of the tray.

Lastly, we run the trays under distilled water.

After that, we put the trays in the "oven," which is pretty much just a heated cabinet for drying materials in the lab. After they've dried, we match the trays back with their lids (which is a bit of a puzzle, given that there are at least 20 trays and lids to match up).

Now for the cool stuff. I got to work with Jeff and Bryden on analyzing water samples today (including my own!), meaning I got to work with an ion chromatography machine. Essentially, ion chromatography is like a mass spectrometer for water: different known concentrations of common ions in water (chlorine, nitrate, phosphate, and sulfate) are put through the ion chromatography machine, and, because they are different sizes, they move through the machine at different speeds. When an ion reaches the end of the machine, where the reading is taken, it causes resistance (the more resistance, the more of the material). After we run standardized concentrations of these ions through the machine, we create a calibration curve for water samples, with concentration of the ion on the y-axis and resistance on the x-axis. With this curve, we can run any water sample through the machine and compare the resulting resistance to the curve, giving us the concentration of particular ions.

The calibration flasks, full of concentrations of chlorine, nitrate, phosphate, sulfate, and water.

The samples get run through that ion chromatography machine on the left, and the readings come out on that computer on the right...

And because the ion chromatography machine in the lab is over 20 years old, it can only communicate with an older computer, like this fossil right here.

The readings will come out in little spikes, with chlorine coming out first, followed by nitrate, then phosphate, and finally sulfate. This isn't the final calibration graph: it's a graph of resistance versus time so that we can distinguish between ions.

To measure the amounts, we record the area under that graph.

And that's the extent of what I did in the lab this past week. In the upcoming week, I'll do some more cool things with water samples!

Regarding my water research project, the extra research I've done on Reverse Osmosis makes it nonviable for potable water treatment because it demineralizes the water, resulting in aggressive water that leeches metals from pipes and takes in contaminants (Pelican Water Systems). Further, such demineralized water reduces nutrient intake necessary for healthy humans (WHO). While it is possible to stabilize the water with calcium and magnesium and add in minerals later, it's simply not worth it to take out the minerals just to add them back in again, especially when the harmful minerals that you're taking out are in such low quantities, as they are in Lake Mary. Thus, sand/andesite filtration is the right way to go, based on a cost-benefit analysis.

Further, I've finally been able to run some simple statistical analysis of Lake Mary's water from 2000-2015 by averaging out the HAA5 and TTHM levels and finding out the probability of an EPA violation in DBPs. Here's the excel chart that I compiled the data in (including other contaminants and aspects of water quality):

The results of our water treatment have proven that the only part of the treatment process that needs to be evaluated is the chemical treatment, evident by the EPA violation in 2015-2016. It is notable that levels of lead in 2014-2015 nearly reached the action level, but fixing this (when an action level violation hasn't occurred yet in the many years that Flagstaff has monitored their water for lead) simply wouldn't be feasible, as it would require sampling of hundreds of taps around Flagstaff to first identify where lead levels are dangerous, as well as an actual re-piping of said taps.

Through a graphing of the data, both HAA5 and TTHM are relatively normal, allowing for a simple analysis of the data:

Slight right skewness, but relatively normal.

Slight left skewness, but relatively normal.

By assuming relative normality and assuming that these sixteen years are representative of the future's years, we can find the probability of an EPA violation by using the mean and the standard deviation of the samples.

HAA5 (MCL=60 ppb): x̅=38.77285714 ppb, Sx=15.34952288 ppb
P(HAA5>60) = normalcdf(60,1000,38.77285714,15.34952288) = 0.0833449467 ≈ 8.33%

TTHM (MCL=80 ppb): x̅=40.845 ppb, Sx=16.88553227 ppb
P(TTHM>80) = normalcdf(80,1000,40.845,16.88553227) = 0.0102015871 ≈ 1.02%

With these values now on hand, we can compare them to our 5% benchmark, and we can find that it is likely that HAA5 will have an EPA violation if we were to switch back to chlorine gas treatment, given that environmental conditions are the same. Thus, it is optimal for Flagstaff to continue on with its chlorine dioxide treatment from a purely water-quality standpoint.

From a budgetary standpoint, it's completely viable to use chlorine dioxide year-round, even as it increases the amount of money spent on water by $25,000 annually, because we already cut out hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on water and wastewater treatment from the utilities department: in 2014-2015, we spent about $490k on treating potable water; in 2015-2016, we reduced the budgetary allocation to $435k. With that difference, there's no issue with a $25,000 increase per year, as we've already spent that much in the past. Even further, 2014-2015 suggests that there will be leftover money to be allocated in the Utilities Department: while the 2014-2015 budget allocated $5.06M to Water Production section of the Utilities Department, only about $4.18M was actual expended.

With each of these in mind, it is completely viable for the Lake Mary Water Treatment Plant to continue its current treatment procedures. However, this isn't to say that we can't improve: some day, we hope to be using nanomembranes instead of sand/andesite filtration simply because it filters out everything except for the dissolved solids (minerals), which are good, as seen by the information on reverse osmosis. There may be better coagulants available (as seen by this study), and the hope is that they'll be made more widely available in the future. And optimization of the flow of water, of our pipes, and every aspect of the treatment process can be made as new issues arise. But for now, Flagstaff is looking pretty good.

From here on out, this blog will be documenting my internship! Thanks for being interested, and here's to the next month!

End of Chapter Six.

Chapter Five: Peach Leaves, Denitrifying Bacteria, and Spilling Hydrogen Peroxide On My Beautiful Lips (feat. Melanie, Jeff, Jamie, Sabrina, Bryden)

Note: This blog post combines weeks five and six (the weeks of 3/6 and 3/13). I felt this was appropriate because I've done much of the same work during both weeks.

Are you any good at holding your hand out once front of you and keeping it steady? Honestly, congratulations if you are, because that right there is a skill. On a scale from 0-10, I'd say that I'm about this good at keeping my hand from shaking uncontrollably. Maybe it's because I get nervous. Maybe it's because I eat a bowl of incredibly nutrient-rich, stomach-filling Cinnamon Toast Crunch for breakfast everyday. Who knows?

All I can say is that it's probably pretty bad that I'm bad at keeping my hand steady, because these past nine days, I've started working in the Colorado Plateau Stable Isotope Laboratory (CPSIL) as an intern! The CPSIL analyzes clients' samples of anything in the environment, including water, soil, animals, etc. In reference to that, here's what I've done over the past two weeks:

The Uninteresting But Important Stuff

I started my internship at the end of a digestion cycle - that is, at the wrapping-up of one of the digestion isotope analyses. Digestion is used to break up samples so that isotopes can be more easily isolated and analyzed by putting them in hotter, more pressurized, more acidic conditions. The lab had just done analyses of large soil and plant samples, so they had tons and tons of tubes that needed to be cleaned out.

A tube in the starting stage. As can be seen, collected at the bottom of the tube lies the sediment of digested plant matter. On top of that lies about forty milliliters of acidic solution.

When the sediment is swirled around, the tube turns completely murky. Ick!

All of that solution can't be dumped in a normal sink though - it's incredibly acidic! It has to be dumped in a special hazardous waste container that gets hauled off and disposed of safely.

As can be seen, all of the acids in the container make it necessary to have a pretty strict set of regulations.

After the acids are dumped, the tubes are washed out with some normal tap water. I couldn't even tell you the amount of times I sprayed water on myself.

After washing, the tubes and caps get dumped here for drying so that they can be reused. That huge bin is only half full...

...because I couldn't finish the other half. Surprisingly, it takes a really long time to clean out a single tube.

The Seemingly Uninteresting But Actually Interesting And Important Stuff

Nearly every isotope sample in the lab is measured by running the sample through a mass spectrometer. (If you don't know how a mass spectrometer works, here's an analogy. Imagine a road with a starting line and finish line. A small car and a large truck are racing each other. If both vehicles start at the same time, and if both vehicles have the same momentum throughout the entire race, which vehicle will win the race. Pause for you to think of the answer... That's right! The small car, because momentum equals mass times velocity. A mass spectrometer is similar, except that it measures the deflection of ions based on their mass-to-charge ratio. Particles are accelerated and are put in a magnetic or electric field (in the vehicle example, the momentum), and different particles will deflect different amounts based on their mass-to-charge ratio. This isolates different ions from each other, and you can figure out how much of an isotope exists based on how many particles deflect at the isotope's known deflection amount.) The mass spectrometer requires that conditions are kept the same within the entire process so that the deflection amount isn't affected by outside conditions, but because each test is run for at least twenty-four hours, it would be nearly impossible to keep conditions the same unless you were to keep the mass spectrometer in a vacuum-sealed room (which is just ridiculous). So, as a means to combat the changing environmental effects (temperature of the room, electrical surges, etc.), standardized materials - materials that have known deflection amounts under normal conditions - are cycled in every ten or so samples in order to map out the "drift" of the machine. As there are tons of samples being run through the mass spectrometer every week, tons of standard trays - Natural Abundance Standards (NAS) - need to be made. And that's where I come in. I take little tin-foil canisters and fill them with certain amounts of materials (ranging from ground-up peach leaves to polyethylene) by scooping them into the canisters and weighing them on the scale. Once the weight is within the required range, I fold the canister into a little cube. Note that all of this is done with two forceps - it took a while to master the art.

The materials needed for standard trays, including a ton of ground-up peach leaves.

A little tin-foil canister close-up.

The station close-up.

How quaint.

The most important thing in the lab, especially when making trays, is to prevent cross-contamination - you wouldn't want multiple materials inside the canister! After every change of material, I clean the station with ethyl alcohol and wipe it with kimwipes - pretty much if tissues and printer paper had a baby.

The Interesting And Important Stuff

I got to help with grinding up a sample of fish muscle and liver. (Don't worry... the fish sample was dried up.)

The sample in its original bag.

Ground up, nice and fine.

I also got to help with culturing some denitrifying bacteria. (It's a bacteria that usually respirates with oxygen gas, but in the absence of oxygen, it takes in nitrate and puts out nitrogen gas. A client wanted to know how much nitrogen is in a soil sample, but because the nitrogen is in the form of nitrate - nitrogen bonded with three oxygens - you have to convert it into nitrogen gas.)

The streaks are where the bacteria, Pseudomonas aureofaciens, is growing.

I also got to start the process of denitrification of the soil by putting P. aureofaciens into little jars and replacing the air inside the jar with helium gas (so that there isn't any oxygen gas for the bacteria to use for respiration).

The process of putting helium gas in the jars takes a couple of hours.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to finish this process, but if I do get to continue this, I'll put it in the next blog post.

Update On My Water Research

I'll be running a simple probability test based on data from 2000-2015, evaluating the probability of the DBP levels in treated water from Lake Mary to be higher than the EPA level. As was established by Thomson et. al in 2008, I'll be using a significance level of α = 0.05.

I likely won't be able to get my water sample analyzed by April, when my AP Research project is due, but that's alright - I don't need it to get a result from my research.

This next week, besides working at the lab, I'll be doing research on Reverse Osmosis, which, in the limited amount of research that I've done on it, is looking to have lots of potential for our water treatment. Further, I'll run the significance test on the data and work on my research paper and presentation.

Shoutout to Melanie, Jeff, and Jamie for being awesome staff, as well as Sabrina and Bryden for being awesome fellow students working in the lab.

End of Chapter Five.

Chapter Four: I'd Describe It As "More Exciting Than Sliced Bread Probably Was," But That's Just My Opinion (feat. Bruce Hungate, Melanie, Jamie, Jeff)

How exciting do you think sliced bread was for people? I mean, they always say, "the best thing since sliced bread," but is that saying much? Is sliced bread all that exciting? Sure, it lets you make yourself a sandwich, but I personally think that using pita bread to make handheld edibles is much more enjoyable.

Anyways, this week marks an exciting advancement in my project. While the research portion slowed down this week, I did have that meeting with Dr. Bruce Hungate, director of the Environmental Analysis Lab at Northern Arizona University. We talked about my sample, Lake Mary's water, and the likes, and he agreed to allow me to use the lab to test my water. But it gets better! He and the staff of the lab (Melanie, Jamie, and Jeff) are letting me intern in the lab! This entails weighing samples on a microgram balance, operating some of the complicated machinery that allows for isolation of certain materials, and helping out wherever I can.

In other news, I've looked more into different methods of treatment, especially ozone treatment. Ozone, used extensively in Europe but less so in the United States, is similar to chlorine treatment in that it disinfects the water, but it also is able to break down algae and other organic matter, all without using chemicals. The problem is that ozone is much more expensive than chlorine to implement. Further, ozone doesn't provide a residual due to the fact that it doesn't use those chemicals. While this eliminates the unwanted effects of residual, it opens up the possibility of microbial infection after distribution. And even further, it still can produce disinfection byproducts in the form of ketones and aldehydes (compounds with a carbonyl group, or a carbon-oxygen double bond). Ozone looks like it could have a future, but current running costs of ozone treatment make it not an option. More information on ozone treatment can be found here.

This upcoming week, I'll start my internship at the lab, as well as continue to research the process. I need to look into what levels I need to run significance tests (so that I can compare my water sample to previous water samples) as well as look into previous samples' levels of TTHM and HAA5. I'll hopefully be able to analyze for methanes and halogens in my sample.

Looking forward to the next week!

End of Chapter Four.