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'Stream Team' strives for clean water'

The "Stream Team," a group of City of Denton employees and UNT faculty members and students, recently unveiled a water quality project that studies the cleanliness of the water flowing into Lake Lewisville - a major drinking water source for Denton and Dallas counties.

The new Stream Research Facility, an experimental stream system at the City of Denton sewage treatment plant, comprises 12 "streams" that are being used to study the effects of multiple chemicals on aquatic life.

For example, researchers are able to examine the effects of chemicals that are commonly found in Lake Lewisville, such as the gasoline additive MTBE (methyl tertiary butyl ether) and the pesticide atrazine, on an environment in which the chemicals react with each other and with the aquatic life.

The information will help determine which individual chemicals or chemical combinations are of concern. In addition, the streams will allow the researchers to gauge the effectiveness of the water treatment system.

"Although the quality of waste water produced by the city is very good, these streams will provide a great research opportunity for us to study the effects of chemicals that do get into our water," says Tom LaPoint, team director, professor of biology and senior scientist in the Institute of Applied Sciences.

Each stream is 16 feet long and two feet wide with a gravel bed similar to that found in natural streams. The streams are stocked with aquatic creatures - such as insects, larvae, snails and fish - to mimic life in natural streams.

Tested water is routed directly back to the treatment plant for cleaning so that no dirty water flow is created.

The only other comparable experimental system in the United States is at the Proctor & Gamble Co. laboratories in Cincinnati.

Funded primarily by LaPoint's faculty seed money for development of research programs, the $30,000 project is a joint venture between the university and the city. Currently, the program is under a five-year contract, with the expectation that it will continue beyond that time. This project is one of many involving a partnership between the city and the university.

"With this project, we're working together to solve environmental problems that already exist or may exist in the future," says Kevin Thuesen, City of Denton environmental services projects manager. "It has important implications for our current drinking water quality and for the future protection of the water in natural streams."

Because of the two-year drought North Texas has experienced, now is the prime time to begin the study, Thuesen says.

"Lake Lewisville is lower than I've ever seen it, and as water levels decrease, the concentration of organisms and chemicals increases," he says. "That makes this research even more important."

BY LISA WILLHOITE
lwillhoite@unt.edu

 

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