With Labor Day approaching, many people are preparing to go tubing and swimming at local streams and rivers. But do these delightful summertime activities have an impact on waterways? Now, the first holistic study of this question has found that recreation can alter the chemical and microbial fingerprint of streams, but the environmental and health ramifications are not yet known.
With Labor Day approaching, many people are preparing to go tubing and swimming at local streams and rivers. These delightful summertime activities seem innocuous, but do they have an impact on these waterways? Today, scientists report preliminary results from the first holistic study of this question, which shows that recreation can alter the chemical and microbial fingerprint of streams, but the environmental and health ramifications are not yet known.
In 2022, the Colorado researchers collected water samples during the busy Labor Day weekend and on a quieter weekday afterward. On many weekends, as many as 500 people per hour use the stream for tubing and swimming at that part of Clear Creek. An undisturbed location upstream was sampled for comparison. The samples were then tested with state-of-the-art analytical approaches, including inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry and liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry.
Carmen Villarruel, a grad student in Ranville's lab, found that human recreation stirred up sediments in the creek, thereby raising the water's concentration of metals, such as copper, lead, zinc, aluminum and iron."Much of the metal was in particulate form, which has implications for wildlife," Villarruel says. For example, these sediments could clog the gills of fish, making it harder for them to absorb oxygen from the water.
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Tubing and swimming change the chemistry and microbiome of streamsWith Labor Day approaching, many people are preparing to go tubing and swimming at local streams and rivers. These delightful summertime activities seem innocuous, but do they have an impact on these waterways? Today, scientists report preliminary results from the first holistic study of this question, which shows that recreation can alter the chemical and microbial fingerprint of streams, but the environmental and health ramifications are not yet known.
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