Students in the Field

Dr. Hoggarth and Two Students Work on Mussel Projects for The Ohio Department of Natural Resources and City of Marysville

Joel Yankie, a senior Life Science major, and Dr. Michael Hoggarth are examining the effect of the lampricide TFM on mussels in the Grand River and Conneaut Creek in northeastern Ohio. Their work is being supported by a grant from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Wildlife. TFM is known to have a narcotizing effect on mussels. Yankie and Hoggarth are looking at possible increased beaching due to this effect, and the impact the lampricide has on mussel reproduction. Their work is ongoing, but so far they have found a ten-fold increase in beaching following flooding events in Conneaut Creek, but not the Grand River. Both streams are among the most scenic in the state with Conneaut Creek having one of the highest number of covered bridges in Ohio. Both streams support runs of steelhead trout, which were seen in abundance during fieldwork this spring.

Leslie Randall, a senior Environmental Science major is helping Dr. Hoggarth with his ongoing study of the impact of an inflatable dam on the Mill Creek mussel community. The City of Marysville is in the process of constructing the dam and upground reservoirs to increase the city's water supply. As part of their mitigation for the dam, the city has removed one concrete dam already and will remove the last remaining concrete dam on the creek as soon as the inflatable dam is functional. Randall and Hoggarth collected mussel density data at five sites upstream of the dam (within the dam pool) and one site downstream to determine baseline data for the community. Hoggarth will monitor these sites for five years to determine if the dam and dam pool have an impact on the mussels of the creek. A Dublin, Ohio engineering firm, BBC&M, is collecting water height, water quality, and sediment load data for the project. A former Life Science student, Scott Ross ('96) is an Environmental Scientist with BBC&M and has helped with this project since it began five years ago.

Otterbein Lake Part of Water Resources Outdoor Laboratory

The Life and Earth Sciences water resources program has recently benefited from the addition of six monitoring wells around the perimeter of Otterbein Lake. The monitoring wells will enable faculty and students to explore the ground water connection between Alum Creek and Otterbein Lake. They also evaluate how water chemistry changes between the Creek and the Lake as a result of groundwater recharge/discharge. The water chemistry can be linked to the biological diversity of the different aquifers environments.

The monitoring well drilling, which was completed by Geotechnical Consultants, Inc. of Westerville, was finished in July 2008. Dr. Kevin Svitana and Environmental Science student Beth Downs '09 worked with the drillers, logging the sediments recovered during drilling, and assisting with the construction of the monitoring wells. "It was a great opportunity to have a student be involved with exploring subsurface features and making decisions regarding the placement and construction of monitoring wells," said Dr. Svitana. The well construction was made possible by department funding and a generous donation from GCI. The City of Westerville gave the College permission to construct wells on city property and access the wells for short term use as in-the-field teaching and research opportunities. The department has also purchased data loggers that will be placed in the wells to continuously record water levels and temperatures. This data can be used to assess temporal fluctuations in ground water flow and help determine how seasonal variations in water level and water temperature affect the ground water resources in the vicinity of Otterbein Lake.