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Clams filter the water and check whether the water is polluted or clean

polishnews.co.uk

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Re: Clams filter the water and check whether the water is polluted or clean

#21

Post by Frost1x »

It's a pretty cheap sensor that can potentially detect all sorts of toxins in the water as a supplement to normal water quality analysis. You really can't expect any sort of reasonable sensor technologies to detect wide ranges of potentially harmful contaminants in water supplies while you can use mussels, clams, etc. as biological sensors--the modern "canary in a coal mine."

I worked with a research project that was sensing, collecting and analyzing types of mussels in rivers that were used as an indirect measurement of water quality in the river. The assumption is that the mussels can act as a proxy for certain contaminants. In fact, they actually filter a lot of water daily so you can occasionally analyze one as to what sort of contaminants it absorbed as a proxy for whats probably in the water.

Meanwhile, water intakes typically only monitor for known and suspected contaminants. They have to rely on other indirect measurements like changes conductivity as a signal to analyze the water and these are noisy and fairly unreliable compositional change detection proxies.

Neat stuff.

Re: Clams filter the water and check whether the water is polluted or clean

#22

Post by dccoolgai »

dukeofdoom wrote: post #18

Maybe they could have alerted about the lead contaminated water in Flint Michigan? A disaster that will affect the next generation. Lead Lowers IQ's in Children and increase crime rate in adults. BTW, the invasive Zebra mussels have done a great job clearing up the Great Lakes. At times the water is so clear on a sunny day in the summer it can look tropical blue.

The water being crystal clear looks cool, but it's an ecological disaster for larger fish in the food chain that depend on the turbidity of the water for ambushing smaller fish.

Re: Clams filter the water and check whether the water is polluted or clean

#23

Post by ch4s3 »

dukeofdoom wrote: post #18

Maybe they could have alerted about the lead contaminated water in Flint Michigan? A disaster that will affect the next generation. Lead Lowers IQ's in Children and increase crime rate in adults. BTW, the invasive Zebra mussels have done a great job clearing up the Great Lakes. At times the water is so clear on a sunny day in the summer it can look tropical blue.

People knew about lead in people’s pipes in Flint. They stopped buffering the water to save money, which leached lead out of pipes in people’s houses. It was a politically engineered disaster.

Re: Clams filter the water and check whether the water is polluted or clean

#25

Post by dukeofdoom »

dccoolgai wrote: post #22
dukeofdoom wrote: post #18

Maybe they could have alerted about the lead contaminated water in Flint Michigan? A disaster that will affect the next generation. Lead Lowers IQ's in Children and increase crime rate in adults. BTW, the invasive Zebra mussels have done a great job clearing up the Great Lakes. At times the water is so clear on a sunny day in the summer it can look tropical blue.

The water being crystal clear looks cool, but it's an ecological disaster for larger fish in the food chain that depend on the turbidity of the water for ambushing smaller fish.

Thats probably True. But to what extent will nature mitigate this, and offset the negative with positives. For example:

1) Clearer water means that light reaches deeper. Potentially allowing more aquatic plants to grow over huge new areas. Providing new habitat, food sources and shelter for fish.

2) Zebra mussels might trap some chemicals like PCBs. And accumulate them in their shells. Once the mussel dies, they fall to the bottom, and might permanently lock up them up into the sediment.

Re: Clams filter the water and check whether the water is polluted or clean

#26

Post by maxerickson »

ch4s3 wrote: post #23
dukeofdoom wrote: post #18

Maybe they could have alerted about the lead contaminated water in Flint Michigan? A disaster that will affect the next generation. Lead Lowers IQ's in Children and increase crime rate in adults. BTW, the invasive Zebra mussels have done a great job clearing up the Great Lakes. At times the water is so clear on a sunny day in the summer it can look tropical blue.

People knew about lead in people’s pipes in Flint. They stopped buffering the water to save money, which leached lead out of pipes in people’s houses. It was a politically engineered disaster.

And/or the supply lines running from the mains to the houses (which you wouldn't be able to look at the pipes in the house and see).

But the contamination happening in the pipes, near the taps, would limit the usefulness of this sort of monitoring (you'd have to do it at each customer location).

Re: Clams filter the water and check whether the water is polluted or clean

#28

Post by mrlala »

Frost1x wrote: post #21

It's a pretty cheap sensor that can potentially detect all sorts of toxins in the water as a supplement to normal water quality analysis. You really can't expect any sort of reasonable sensor technologies to detect wide ranges of potentially harmful contaminants in water supplies while you can use mussels, clams, etc. as biological sensors--the modern "canary in a coal mine." I worked with a research project that was…

What kind of "feedback" do you get from the mussels in a polluted environment? Is it death or something more interesting?

Re: Clams filter the water and check whether the water is polluted or clean

#29

Post by ch4s3 »

maxerickson wrote: post #26
ch4s3 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People knew about lead in people’s pipes in Flint. They stopped buffering the water to save money, which leached lead out of pipes in people’s houses. It was a politically engineered disaster.

And/or the supply lines running from the mains to the houses (which you wouldn't be able to look at the pipes in the house and see). But the contamination happening in the pipes, near the taps, would limit the usefulness of this sort of monitoring (you'd have to do it at each customer location).

Yeah, monitoring isn't helpful when people knew what the issue would be upfront.
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