Sean C. Morgan
Crescent Valley High School students visited Sweet Home recently to tell the Rotary Club about its research into arsenic in Sweet Home area ground water.
?We?ve been coming here the last three years,? Erica Kemp, a student, said. They started the project based on a 1998 U.S. Geological Survey study that found high levels of arsenic in the ground water.
?We?ve been trying to figure out where the arsenic is coming from,? Kemp said. ?Is it natural??
The students have been taking samples from the area each year for testing. Initially one class, 11 classes participated in the project this year. Those classes include biology, physics and other sciences.
Over their school?s first semester this year, the school took five soil samples, student Sara Livesay said. Those were not enough for sound analysis, so they returned for 127 more samples. The Department of Energy is analyzing those samples.
There have always been trace amounts of arsenic in samples taken from the area, Livesay said. Those first five samples came back with zero arsenic hence the follow-up testing.
The classes spend one full day in the field taking samples, Adam Kirsch said. If it were Sweet Home High School, it would be simpler and quicker to get samples.
?We wanted to be looking at a real problem,? Kirsch said of selecting Sweet Home for a school project. ?We could fabricate something, but this is more real.?
The problem is international in scope, student Georgi Mitev said. Bangladesh and India have high levels of arsenic in their soils and ground water.
The high school students do not know the extent of high arsenic levels in Sweet Home, Kirsch said, but much of the problem is along Ames Creek Road.
Levels are about 100 times the average level around the world, Mitev said.
After getting test results back on the samples, they hope to be able to draw some conclusions about the arsenic and the issues it may present.
Next school year, students will start working with data students collected this year, Kirsch said.
The study is a first in some ways.
Usually arsenic is more present in bedrock than soil and plants, Mitev said.
?Since no one has looked at soil arsenic and how it relates to water, that?s what these guys are doing here,? Kirsch said.
?What we do here could lead to insights on how it goes into plants and how you tell if it does,? Lily Wade said. Last semester, students looked at ways to take arsenic out of the soil.
?Some ferns have been found to take out tremendous amounts of arsenic out of the ground,? Kirsch said.
The project has won several science fairs and took first place at a state competition.
?We?ve gone from one class ? to 11 classes,? Kirsch said, but he would like to take it another step. ?It would be cool in my mind in forming some kind of relationship between our school and Sweet Home High School.?
For information about the project, persons may visit www2.corvallis.k12.or.us/cvhs.