LIVERMORE FALLS – What three teenagers saw this spring in a 12-mile stretch of the Androscoggin River in New Hampshire between Erroll and Berlin surprised them.
It also left them a bit envious of the 55 people they saw using the river mostly for recreation. There was a rope swing into the river, all the boat launches were full and they spotted seven moose along the river, two of them feeding in the water, Kendra Lyman, 14, who lives along the river in Livermore Falls, said in a recent interview.
“If you think about it, you really don’t see that stuff down here,” Lyman said.
Lyman, Karly Wilkins, 13, and Chelsie Morris, 14, conducted dissolved oxygen and hydrogen tests along the river for a school science project. In recent interviews, they said they discovered that the river was cleaner in Maine than they expected, but there is more work to be done to get it to the point where people will flock to it for recreation.
“We want to see the river get cleaned up. Water is such an important aspect of human life,” Lyman said. “If you pollute the water sources, what is going to happen to us, to the animals, to everything? One thing I really want to stress is it is not just the mills polluting, it’s everybody.”
There is erosion from the farms, storm drain overflows and spots where towns dump snow, sand and salt removed from the roads, which then drains into the river. At one point near Berlin, she said, they saw a pipe sticking out into the river that bubbled up every so often.
“We were trying to look at the whole picture and put everything into consideration,” Morris said.
Samples and photos
The girls chose to study the upper portion of the river from New Hampshire to Livermore Falls for their eighth-grade science and art project while students at Livermore Falls Middle School.
“We thought the water would be dirtier than it is,” Wilkins said. “They really have tried to clean up the river. I think we should keep going to the point where it is in New Hampshire.”
The three teens and a parent spent 16 hours in two trips this spring taking photos and conducting tests. The second trip was mainly to retake photos that were destroyed during developing.
The main purpose of the project was to do water quality testing, to find out how clean the river is and to determine how industry is affecting the river and animal habitat, Morris said.
They tested levels of acidity and dissolved oxygen in five places over 100 miles: Umbagog Lake on the New Hampshire-Maine border, and Screw Auger Falls in Grafton Notch, Rumford, Mexico and Jay, in Maine, Wilkins said.
The dissolved-oxygen levels show how much oxygen is in the water for the fish to use, Lyman said. The higher the number of parts per million of dissolved oxygen there is, the more oxygen there is for fish to use, she said. The ideal number is five.
At the Umbagog site, the teens recorded 1.8 parts per million of dissolved oxygen.
“It’s pretty good for a river,” Lyman said. “But we were surprised because we thought it would be higher.”
At Screw Auger Falls, dissolved oxygen was recorded at 2.3 parts per million.
“When we went to Rumford, it was two parts per million, we found it went down,” Morris said. “I would say it’s pretty good, not really good.”
In Mexico, dissolved oxygen was 2.1 parts per million and in Jay it was 2.2 parts per million.
Everyone can help
When the teens tested for acidity, they found the readings were a bit on the high side, they said. If the number of potential hydrogen, or acidity, is too high, the fish can’t live and if it’s too basic, the fish can’t live, Wilkins said. The ideal number is seven and the highest number is 14, she said.
The potential hydrogen levels were 8.3 at Umbago, 10 at Screw Auger Falls where there are lots of rocks, 8.5 in Rumford, 8.1 in Mexico and 8.4 in Jay.
“When we did the experiment, we were not trying to point fingers,” Lyman said. “We wanted to educate ourselves on where the pollution was coming from.”
“I want to be able to be around the river and think of it as a nice place – a good place for people to come and see, not a scary place,” Wilkins said.
Everyone around here could contribute something to help the river, Morris said.
“Whether it is contributing money, getting involved or cleaning up the river, everyone can do something,” Lyman said. “It seems like everybody is waiting to see if somebody else is going to do something about it. It’s not their problem.”
“If you stop polluting, it can get cleaner,” Wilkins said.
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