This summer I was a seasonal worker for the Department of Environmental Protection's (DEP) Water Management Bureau, Planning and Standards Division, in Hartford, Connecticut. The Bureau's mission is to protect and restore the surface waters and rivers of the state, to enhance recreation, to propagate fish and aquatic life, and to enhance the economic wellbeing of the state. Two of the ways it achieves its mission are through assisting municipalities in upgrading sewage treatment facilities and monitoring bathing waters at state beaches. As an intern, part of my responsibility was to collect water samples from state beaches and to perform microbiological analyses to test the water for bacteria. Connecticut was divided into four loops, with five to seven beaches on each loop. I drove with one other intern to the beaches in one of these loops. At the beaches we wore waders and waded out to our hips to scoop up the water samples in plastic bottles. Back in Hartford, we went to the Health Department's Microbiology Lab and conducted bacterial testing. In two days we received the results and, if the bacterial levels were high enough, we had to retest the beach water. High levels of bacteria were caused by geese and other animal droppings combined with rain events that would have washed the bacteria into the water. Sometimes the decision was made to close the beach to the public.

I also took water samples from specific locations along the Naugatuck River and picked up effluent from the Waterbury sewage treatment plant. The Waterbury sewage treatment plant was upgraded last year from a secondary to a tertiary treatment plant. The plant dumps its effluent into the Naugatuck River so water quality was monitored to see the effects of the upgrade. I set up and monitored LC50 tests (the lethal concentration that kills 50% of fat head minnow fry and daphnia) using these water samples. The organisms were put into beakers of various concentrations of effluent and river water collected upstream of the plant. Ten fat head minnow fry were placed in each beaker and each day of the test I monitored them and recorded any deaths. I also set up copper tests, using copper nitrate concentrations instead of the effluent, to test the sensitivity of the fry and daphnia. Each test lasted three days and each day I recorded the dissolved oxygen content, the temperature, the conductivity, and the pH of all the test beakers. This monitoring was to ensure that only the toxicity of the sample caused any mortality and not any other factors. Unfortunately, we had problems with the organisms. The daphnia and fat head minnow fry had low survival rates in the controls (lab culture water) due to unknown reasons, so LC50 tests on the Waterbury effluent could not be conducted for the second half of the summer.

In the water toxicology lab I cared for the adult fat head minnow, the fry, and daphnia that were used in the tests. I also kept the lab clean and maintained by washing dishes, cleaning fish tanks, preparing lab culture water, making food for the organisms, and performing other maintenance tasks. Tracy Lizotte, my field supervisor, partnered me with other DEP workers to collect water samples. Al Iacobucci, an environmental analyst, was my supervisor in the water toxics lab and provided me with instructions. Since I worked in the water toxics lab last year, Al did not have to train me to set up and conduct the tests. My experience and ability to work well on my own, knowing what needed to be done in the lab and doing it without being told, allowed him the time to get other projects completed.

This summer I had the opportunity not only to return to the Naugatuck River and continue testing the water quality, but also to talk to people in the DEP who were involved with the Naugatuck River. I now have a better understanding of the state's involvement in the upgrade of the Waterbury Sewage Treatment Plant as well as some of the history of the Naugatuck River. For my senior project I plan to determine how the upgrade of the Waterbury sewage treatment plant has improved the water quality of the river and how sensitive species have reappeared as a result. I received data necessary for my project on the water quality before, during, and after the Waterbury sewage treatment plant upgrade, including dissolved oxygen and ammonia-nitrogen levels, percent survival of fathead minnows, and data on benthic macroinvertebrate communities. Even though the LC50 tests could not be conducted for the entire summer the tests will continue into the fall and there should be plenty of these post construction data. I will be analyzing the numbers of benthic macroinvertebrates and fish species that have returned to the river and relate them to the chemistry and toxicity data. I plan on receiving more recent data on the effluent and river water quality from my contacts at the DEP and I look forward to the interviews I will have with these professionals as I conduct research for my senior project.

I was very pleased with the positive response from the professionals in the Water Bureau concerning my project. Their willingness to talk to me about the upgrade and their opinions on the way in which the upgrade was conducted and its successes helped to give me some unique insight. Some felt that the upgrade happened too quickly at the expense of river water quality, but most agreed that at the present time water quality of the river is greatly improved. Some of these researchers have seen first hand some pollution-sensitive species present in the river now that had not been there in the past. I look forward to analyzing and presenting my findings in my final paper on this case study of improvement in the environmental quality of the Naugatuck River.