Notes

What Organizations Work With THe Canal? - Ada Donnelly
Organizations that work with the canal are, the gowanus canal conservancy, they work with the canal. They even have a “Gowanus Green Team”. They also offer summer internships. Riverkeeper, “NY’s clean water advocate,” works with the gowanus canal. Riverkeeper explains there are many efforts to clean it up, reduce Combined Sewage Overflows, as I said earlier, “It’s called Combined because it’s wastewater, which they were going to clean and the stormwater/ ice melt off.”CSOs are when and PAHs. PAHs are a chemical group. They (the chemicals) occur in, “coal, crude oil and gasoline.” They’re also in things made with fossil fuels, a leading contributor in global warming. The last group I’ll talk about that works with the canal is “The Sierra Club of New York City”, they wrote, “We welcome participation by Sierra Club members in the Gowanus Canal Committee as we work with EPA and community to guide the restoration of the canal.” We’re part of the community. They also leave an email if anybody is interested or wants to be part of it.
How we can Clean up The Canal? - Ada Donnelly
We can clean up the canal by pulling out sunken things. For example, there is a “rusting boat hull” in the canal we need to extract. Turns out that's already happening, “Contractors will use a 100,000-pound hydraulic excavator perched atop a massive barge to pluck a rusting boat hull and other detritus out of the polluted canal's Fourth Street turning basin, a key step forward in the canal's $506 million Superfund cleanup, EPA officials said Monday,” says DNA Info . This shows that pulling out things that aren’t good for the wildlife and don’t belong in the canal, is a good way to help clean up. National Ocean Service says, “Marine debris may be mistaken by some animals for food or eaten accidentally. Often, larger items like nets, fishing line, and abandoned crab pots snare or trap animals. Entanglement can lead to injury, illness, suffocation, starvation, and even death. NOAA is working with many partners to tackle this problem by reducing and preventing marine debris in our oceans and waterways.” Hopefully ridding the gowanus of this can help prevent animals from eating waste and trash from the water, which can potentially kill them. There could also be traces of chemicals and bad metals that can be harmful to aquatic life. The gowanus isn’t all without marine life, minnows and other species live there. LOOK UP If the water isn’t filled with old rotting gunk, it’ll be a safer and cleaner environment for others. Above, is a chart of wildlife found in the gowanus amongst years. The “Human Children” was because before the canal was polluted, children could swim in it, now it’s a red status beach. We can also physically clean it up. People can wear protective clothing and go into the canal, just like Marnya Linchuck did except, she cleaned up a non-polluted beach, so she didn’t need protective clothing. “The Belarusian modeling star spent her winter break cleaning up the refuse-covered beaches of the Maldives.” Think about it,
Photo: Courtesy of Maryna Linchuk
if everybody spent their winter break, or any break doing this, it would make a big impact. If you’ve ever noticed, the gowanus has a little beach. Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a beach as, “a pebbly or sandy shore, especially by the ocean between high- and low-water marks.
synonyms:
seaside, seashore, shore, coast, waterfront, lakeshore, coastline, coastal region, littoral, seaboard, foreshore, water's edge,”
The Weather Channel said, “ The status of this beach is RED”, implying there is a beach. A red beach status means water’s closed for swimming, fishing and boating. If there wasn’t trash, it would be much of a better place for swimming, viewing and wildlife. Lastly, we can continue pumping oxygen into the canal. In 5th grade we went to the Gowanus Canal and our teacher said something along the lines of Wow, we’re lucky! We caught the Gowanus Canal on a day when they’re pumping oxygen. We also saw that they were taking water tests, for dissolved oxygen. We can help the canal by continuing to pump oxygen into the canal, hopefully, if people understand that wildlife is living in the canal, they won’t dump things into it, and Waste Pollution Facilities will try to find other places to place CSO. CSO is combined sewage overflow, it happens when rainwater or stormwater or ice melt off goes into a treatment facility, but it’s too much water for the plant to handle. For example, it was raining today (May 5th)
PHOTO HERE and today there will likely be some CSO. It’s called Combined because it’s wastewater, which they were going to clean and the
stormwater/ ice melt off. It won’t be a quick change, but it will get there. Why would anybody want to hurt animals? The chart further above shows the wildlife found there. You may notice it isn’t a lot. Recently while walking home from school, my friends and I saw geese.
PHOTO HERE
Of geese :P (I took)
What if we saw fish, jellyfish and oysters? How cool would that be?