Browsing by Author "Ballard, Jake Howard"

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    Describing the Impacts of Wastewater Effluent on the Phytoplankton Community Composition in Galveston Bay
    (2022-04-26) Ballard, Jake Howard; Quigg, Antonietta
    The treatment of wastewater has been a dilemma since humans began building and inhabiting cities. Globally, wastewater is released into oceans, bays, streams, lakes and rivers, in many cases, without much consideration for the potential ecological impacts. The impact of wastewater effluent on the phytoplankton community is not well understood. Changes in the phytoplankton community composition are related to the physicochemical parameters of the environment. Phytoplankton are essential to the marine ecosystem as they are the foundation of the food chain and support higher trophic levels. Thus, a deep understanding of the relationship between human activity and wastewater effluent impacts on the ecosystem is necessary for identifying potential environmental degradation due to human activities. As the human population increases, so will the amount of wastewater that is produced. Understanding the best methods of disposal and treatments will help ensure that the best practices are being employed. Seemingly small factors such as release rate, release time and surrounding environments of the wastewater effluent input have the potential to influence how the treated wastewater navigates 2 through the waterway. I hypothesize that changes in the phytoplankton community will be correlated to rapid and large increase in human population associated with human events. In order to test this hypothesis, I determined this relationship by establishing baseline environmental parameters and phytoplankton assemblages to data collected during large-scale human activities in Galveston Bay, Texas. My data suggests that there are no changes in the concentration of chlorophyll-a, a proxy for phytoplankton biomass, between baseline periods and large-scale human activities. This implies that the large-scale human activities did not impact the concentration of phytoplankton. Why a noticeable change was not observed in this study will be discussed, as well as suggestions for future directions of such research.
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    Documenting of Sterols, PAHs, and PCBs on Galveston Island Beaches
    (2022-04-26) Marek, Bret Andrew; Martin, Jared; Ballard, Jake Howard; Hala, David; Kaiser, Karl
    Understanding the impacts of humans on an ecosystem is vital in developing methods to mitigate the amount of contamination in an environment. Given that Galveston Bay is one of the largest ports in Texas, it is an epicenter for human pollution. The human populations that inhabit cities around the bay rely on the surrounding oil refineries and municipal infrastructure for daily activities. The expansiveness of the maritime industry in Galveston Bay results in extensive ship traffic that increases the presence of oil in the port waters. Additionally wastewater treatment facilities are an essential component of infrastructure within human inhabited regions. The release of treated wastewater has been a topic of great discussion regarding its ecological impacts. Being able to quantify the extent of wastewater effluent contamination within an ecosystem is necessary when one is trying to understand the ecological impacts of treated wastewater effluent in an environment. The objective of this research project is to elucidate the extent of human derived pollution with respect to wastewater and oil refineries. Through the quantification of the presence of sterol biomarkers (indicating sewage pollution), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) (indicating industrial or oil refinery pollution) one can thereby grasp the magnitude of human pollution in the Galveston Bay area. To our knowledge, the analyses of sterols has not been previously conducted in the Galveston Bay area. Our preliminary results indicate the widespread presence of these pollutants on the beaches of Galveston Bay.