On Saturday afternoon, May 21st, I had the pleasure of helping 3 citizen-scientists with their latest science project of testing the water on Newtown Creek. They are Isabel Tribe, Lily Rudd and Indie Jacobs who attend the Salk School of Science in Manhattan. Their idea was to collect waters samples from multiple locations along the creek the same morning and to test them in the lab. The Chair of the School of Visual Arts BFA Fine Arts, Suzanne Anker was generous to provide the Bio-Lab as the setting.

This was no easy task for the young scientists, as they had to travel to the waters edge to fill recycled plastic bottles of the creek water at low tide on the same morning. The locations were at the North Brooklyn Boat Club, the Newtown Creek Natur…

Each sample (two per location) was tested for pH and total Alkalinity, Total Hardness, Nitrate/Nitrite Nitrogen, Iron, Copper, Free Chlorine and Total Chlorine. While the test levels yielded very similar results (except in the English Kills “spring”…

Any kind of science experiment will not immediately reveal results that are anticipated. In fact, even the 2010 study of water in Newtown Creek’s Dutch Kills, completed by Dr, Durand and LaGuardia Community College students, were over a period of se…

What I explained to Isabel, Lily and Indie was of more importance is their methodology of collecting the samples. As far as I know it was the first such water tests that were (near) simultaneous of multiple site collection over the length of the cre…

all photos courtesy of Mark Tribe (2016).