Successes/Problems We Are Having
Successes:  (7/5-7/9)  Team 03 went out and about this weekend to start collecting nitrate data for our project.  Since our kit also tests for phosphates we added that to our data collection.  The Springdale golf course stream is easy to get to and collect water samples.  We also decided to test the stream that runs near the power plant at Lot 23.
(7/10-7/14)   Team 03 has continued data collection and the data is looking consistent with our main ideas.  Nitrate levels drop after the stream runs through the golf course.  Lenny attended GLOBE last week and hopes to bring it to his school.  Rick attended GREEN and learned quite a bit about EPA standards and such.  Rick is also in the process of meeting with Charley Dey (Springdale grounds maintenance) to discuss what the fertilizing and watering schedule is for the course.  Charley is always busy on the course and has not been able to me with Rick - yet.  He also checked out a nitrate kit from GREEN that we can use until Friday the 18th.  More broad in it's testing range but will still help show trends in nitrate concentration.
(7/15-7/20)  Spec20 from Nancy will work for our tests.  Team 03 has finished collecting data from our test sites.  A page on the web has been created with the data and graph of data included.  Interpretation of data will soon follow.  We received two test kits from The Nitrate Elimination Company, Inc. to start doing some beta testing of the kit.  Our other teams have given us 26 samples to test with the kit.  We got some pretty good test tubes that will work with Nancy's spec20 and we figured out which adapter to add to it for the testing.  The chemistry department gave us some 3 N HCl and the test tubes.  Ron U. let us use his 1.0 mL graduated pipette and delivery device for the testing.  Team 03 thanks them all.  We also purchased a good book on hydrology and the river environment for some research reading.  Lenny went out to the golf course and took some more shots of the course and also got a drawing of the course layout with the stream shown on the diagram.  Found out that the pond that was built into the stream on the course is used as the reservoir for the irrigation system on the course.  It has a fountain aereator in the pond to keep oxygen levels in the beneficial range.

Problems:  (7/5-7/9)  Saturday we went to find sites at our second golf course stream and our control stream.  65 miles later we have thrown out the control stream because of all the urbanization near the stream.  In fact we could not find anything that looked like a stream where the map sent us.  We stopped at a gas station and got good directions to the area but the stream is no more. As for the second golf course stream we are still in the process of determining it's use to our project.  Saturday we spent over 1 hour looking for this course (2 hicks from a rural area in the big city) and when we finally got there we found a large picnic area that was being used by some reunion.  We went back Sunday during our testing and did find the stream near the picnic area to take a sample from.  We now must follow the stream down to where it empties into the larger river.  This looks like it will mean walking along side the golf course for some distance(can't see because of the small woods running with the stream.  Another problem we had was that the test kit tests up to 1ppm for nitrate-N but the golf course tested beyond this.  We are going to try and do a dilution with distilled water for a better measurement this week.
(7/10-7/14)  Still having trouble getting to talk to the head groundskeeper at Springdale course.  Hope to get this done before end of week.  Concerned about use of kits that use cadmium.  Are we hurting our test sites?  We have kept our waste from the tests and disposed of it in the sink at Palmer 201.  Nobody has given us a dump site so I made this decision.  The GREEN test kits keep the test waste in the vial which we will return to Lisa at end of week.  Along this line I e-mailed the Nitrate Elimination Company about their enzymatic test kits which appear to have no real environmental wastes produced in testing.  They have agreed (and sent) to 2 beta test kits for the institute to use.  The problem that I have now is the kit requires a Spec 20 or colorimeter for sample reading and standard readings.  It also requires the use of micropipets.
We thought we had a spec 20 from Nancy but it is a device that uses a specific type of test and test vial.  We will have to continue our search for a standard spec 20 with cuvettes for our testing with this kit.  The company is also developing a field test kit but does not have it available for beta testing at this time.
(7/15-7/20)  Still have not been able to talk to Charley Dey.  The USGA visited the golf course this week so he was very busy.  Hopefully this week?  Using the 1 mL pipette was a pain but we gained skill with repeated usage.  Began the restructuring of our web page once we received a check list to follow - better late than never!  Lenny has begun to wonder about the setup of the testing of the enzyme kit with other groups water samples.  He thinks that he should have done all the testing ( using all four kits at the same time) to eliminate any doubt of procedural misusage.  He has requested two more kits from the Nitrate Elimination Company to continue the testing once Team 03 gets back home.  Conclusions are incomplete at this time on the research.  We also hope to add data with the use of a colorimeter instead of a Spec20.

If anybody has hints or suggestions for our project please send a message to lfreidhof@internetni.com with your ideas or comments.

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