Spring 2001
Clams Monitor for PCBs
The Clean Streams/Clean Bay Community Monitoring Project is off and running! Thanks to two grants from Community Foundation Silicon Valley and San Francisco Foundation, the hiring of a projects coordinator, and to the innovative ideas of those who started the project last year, this important community project is here to stay.
SVTC’s Sustainable Water Program is moving forward with research, training, and educating, not to mention clam digging. A tremendous partnership between SVTC, local high schools, San Jose Children’s Discovery Museum, the Regional Water Board, San Francisco Estuary Institute and other area agencies is evolving.
Students at Pioneer and Oak Grove High Schools have participated in two clam deployments on the Guadalupe Creek. Like the model used by the Regional Monitoring Program, prevalent exotic freshwater clams (Corbicula fluminea), are placed in mesh bags and deployed for a period of time at sites along the creek. Students are involved with the collecting, measuring, and placement of these clams. The stress on the clams is minimal, but the evidence they provide reveals much about contamination in the water.
Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) have been shown to bio-accumulate in organisms, so they build up in the clam tissue and on up the food chain. PCBs are persistent, bio-accumulative and toxic. They cause birth defects, reproductive disorders, and potentially cancer.
Corbicula clams pump a lot of water through their bodies. Laboratory analysis comes after the clams have been filtering creek water, grit, and environmental toxins for 2-3 months. Analysis reveals types and sources of PCBs present.
After presenting the data to the Santa Clara Basin Watershed Management Initiative and Regional Water Quality Control Board, the Clean Streams/Clean Bay project’s information will raise public awareness of PCBs in area watersheds and spur PCBs source investigation and cleanup.
Clean Streams/Clean Bay believes this project can help restore and protect contaminated watersheds. Students are collecting the kind of long-term monitoring data researchers wish they had all along. This includes looking at habitat assessment and biological indicators of stream health, such as vegetation and invertebrate populations and diversity. Long term data is invaluable to the assessment of watershed health and to the understanding of the effects of persistent chemicals on our environment. Each component of the project aims to educate and contribute to the community’s understanding of water pollution—the problems and the solutions.
Pioneer High School students presented their research methodology at the Headlands Institute’s Bay Area Environmental Youth Quest in March. In addition, Pioneer students along with the Children’s Discovery Museum’s BioSITE Program joined over 3000 empowered youth at the National Youth Service Learning Conference in Denver, Colorado.
Virginia Robinson was SVTC CleanStreams/Clean Bay Community Projects Coordinator
Clean Streams/Clean Bay monitored watersheds throughout the Santa Clara Valley.
Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition wishes to acknowledge the support of the City of San Jose Watershed Grants Program for our participation in the Santa Clara Basin Watershed Management Initiative. We also want to thank those contributors who sponsored two student to attend the Denver Youth Service Conference.
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