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Guarding the groundwater

LifeWise Community Press Releases: Oct 28, 2004
Author: Genevieve Giambanco

Burce Montville demonstrates groundwater quality testing at the Portsmouth Middle School on Tuesday.
Gigi Giambanco photo

PORTSMOUTH - Portsmouth Middle School’s sixth-graders are learning that their drinking water comes from groundwater, which must be kept safe from pollutants.

Bruce A. Montville EE and Dick Dube of LifeWise Community Partners presented "Future Water Guardians of N.H." to Sherry Weston’s sixth-grade science class Wednesday afternoon.

The classroom demonstration was part of the students’ South Mill Pond project, said Weston.

The students are studying bird activity as part of a University of New Hampshire project, which Weston said is based on this premise: "The healthier the South Mill Pond, the higher the bird counts."

Montville and Dube explained to the students how groundwater is created through the water cycle and how they can prevent underground water sources from becoming polluted. The school itself receives water from the Bellamy Reservoir and wells in Greenland, which are all groundwater sources, Montville explained.

He used a glass-encapsulated groundwater model to show how pollutants, like antifreeze and gasoline, can move from a well, pond or landfill into water-saturated ground.

"We don’t want to get it into our groundwater," Montville told the students. "You wouldn’t put this stuff into your cereal, would you?"

Dube used an EnviroScape watershed model to show the students how pollutants can move through a watershed, an area of land that slopes downward.

The students crowded around Dube as he used colored particles and a spray bottle to replicate a rainfall washing contaminants from animal waste, fertilizers, industrial plant waste and other everyday types of "non-point-source pollution" into a river.

"Only the water guardians can stop non-point-source pollution," Dube said.

Montville told the students that he and Dube had come "to help you guys become water guardians."

He urged the students to safely secure, cover up or put away any pollutant or contaminant they come across, because it could potentially enter the groundwater. If the pollution is too large or dangerous, said Montville, leave it alone and tell a parent about it.

Montville, who is the chief executive of LifeWise, said his nonprofit company does many educational presentations of this nature.

Students are given a pretest before the presentation and are tested again afterward.

"We usually see a wonderful learning curve," he said.

"I learned that antifreeze is really dangerous, and water pollution is really bad," said sixth-grader Joe Zammit.

Bruce A. Montville EE
President & CEO