Area students nail down water issues, solutions

SANDPOINT — The Youth Water Summit on May 21 was the culmination of months of water science education and preparation for Lake Pend Oreille High School students.

“It’s a lot of work,” said LPOHS science teacher Brenda Woodward.

With Woodward’s instruction, however, the students were ready for the summit, which included about 500 students from 10 schools. LPOHS was the only school north of Kootenai County to participate in the sixth annual event, held at North Idaho College in Coeur d’Alene.

Ahead of the summit, the students took field trips as part of the Confluence Project, a partnership between the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, the Kootenai Environmental Alliance, the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, IdaH20 and U of I.

Woodward said some of the trips they took involved snow science, water quality testing and, of course, the summit. The teens also met with area experts, including Molly McCahon with the Lakes Commission, Shannon Williamson with Lake Pend Oreille Waterkeeper, and Jim Ekins from the University of Idaho Coeur d’Alene extension. Additionally, they communicated with other experts via email from the Department of Environmental Quality and Idaho Transportation Department, among others.

Throughout the process, Woodward said the students are expected to identify a local water issue, do some research, conduct experiments, and then propose a solution to the problem. They take their projects to the summit to be judged by a number of water experts from around the region. The “big focus,” Woodward said, is on whether the teens followed the scientific process and propose a viable solution.

“There are lots of benefits, but a big part of it, I believe, is just an awareness of your environment and this idea that you can potentially create a solution to a current problem,” she said.

At the conclusion of the summit, judges chose a first-, second- and third-place winner from each of the ten schools. With 11 students, LPOHS had eight teams of ranging from one to three people on each.

For her project, “Smackdown! Flowering Rush vs. Bacteria,” Kendell Kurrus was the school’s first-place winner. The LPOHS junior said she has been interested in invasive species for some time.

“I liked studying the way they crowded out the native plants, and how it affected the lake, flowering rush in particular, because it is such a hard thing to kill,” she said. “And I am really big on natural foods and organics and not using chemicals, so the idea of using herbicides in the lake and affecting our aquatic ecosystems is really important to me, and finding a way to stop that.”

After talking with Williamson, Kurrus said she was able to figure out a bacterial solution, using decomposing bacteria on the flowering rush in place of herbicides. Kurrus said while they worked on the projects all quarter, the experiment itself took eight days, mostly in observation of how the bacteria affected the water quality and the flowering rush. She used two types of bacteria, she said, and while one seemed to work, the other did not. Ultimately, Kurrus said she does think it is feasible.

As far as how the summit went, Kurrus said it was “super stressful,” but worth it in the end.

“One, I got first place and, two, I ended up really liking the summit,” she said. “I learned a lot about the local water quality and what is happening in our lake, and I think a lot of people don’t know a lot about flowering rush or the Joslyn property, or about how big of a problem erosion is … It’s really good to know and I think people really need to know about it.”

The second-place team was LPOHS junior Caitlin Yarber and senior Samuel Olson for their project, “Water Assault,” which had to do with how road salts affect water quality. They chose the project, they said, because of how much of an issue road salts are in North Idaho due to the icy roads. Because the salt has to go somewhere once the ice melts, it is absorbed into the groundwater, rivers and lakes.

The duo went through some trial and error, however, with their solutions. In one experiment, Olson said, they used alfalfa meal and, aside from the fish eating it, it created a biochemical oxygen demand, plummeting the dissolved oxygen levels. Even though their hypothesis was “completely in the water,” Olson said they bounced back from it by accepting that it was wrong. It was also their presentation, because of how much they practiced, that helped them win the second-place spot, they said.

“Practice, practice, practice — kids get annoyed with that term, but it really does pay off,” Olson said. “... The project overall was absolutely amazing.”

“Stressful, but amazing,” Yarber added.

In third place was LPOHS junior Madison McNall for her project, “Farmin’ Up a Storm.” The purpose of her project, she said, was to find a sustainable way to repurpose stormwater. One solution, she said, was to collect and filter the stormwater for use in a community garden. That would not only repurpose the stormwater, it would give people access to healthier foods, she said.

“I know that healthier foods are more expensive,” McNall said.

For her experiment, she used three plants with three different filtration options. One was a filter she built, another was a grass filter, and the third was a control, so it was not filtered, she said. The water that she collected was road runoff from an area near Grouse Creek. In her hypothesis, she assumed the plant with her homebuilt filter would grow the fastest — and it did. Overall, she said, it was very successful, though she has some ideas for how she would improve it next time.

“It’s definitely a learning experience, because I had no idea what stormwater was and after going through this entire, stressful project, I’m very happy with what I have learned — things I can do to help the environment; things I didn’t even know were going on in the environment.”

While those were the three projects chosen by the judges, Woodward said all of the students did a great job. Michael Leschke’s “Trash on the Beach” project was just as the name indicates — trash in and around Lake Pend Oreille, from the shoreline to the water’s depths. His solution included a public campaign to encourage people to throw their trash away at fast food restaurants, as well as installing trash cans along the shore to decrease the amount of waste around the beach.

Dalton Turley and Rylee Turley’s project, “A Stream Runs Through It,” focused on the overgrowth and debris within streams and creeks, which they said can adversely affect the water and it’s quality.

The largest team, with Destiny Leiber, Zeya Martin and Shalyn Prettyman, named their project “Jostlin for the Joslyn Site.” The project was about pentachlorophenol — a probable human carcinogen — contamination at the Joslyn site on Boyer Avenue. The group said their solution was to spread the word to the community about the issue in hopes of something being done to clean it up.

“The project was pretty stressful to put together, but the summit was fun and totally worth the experience,” they said.

Chastity Needham, on “The Negative Effects of Fertilizer,” said she focused on how it negatively affects water quality. Calista Needham’s project, “How to Keep Your Loam Home,” focused on the importance of planting native plants, such as pine grass and Oregon grape, on the lake shore to prevent erosion during water level fluctuations.

“In general, we got really positive feedback from the judges, and I am always very proud of them (the students),” Woodward said. “We put them through the ringer when they are rehearsing.”

Woodward said she was tough on the kids throughout the project, comparing it to “training at high altitude” so that when they actually got to the presentation, they judges would be a bit easier on them than she was. While the students agreed she was tough on them, they all said it was worth it.

“Brenda is the best science teacher ever, hands down,” Olson said, adding that he will remember the project as being one of his best high school experiences. “Absolutely amazing.”

Mary Malone can be reached by email at mmalone@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow her on Twitter @MaryDailyBee.