Project:

Gowanus Canal and Newtown Creek Pollutants Affecting Plant Species

Students:

Piper Colley, Odessa Gelman, Blake Barneys

School:

Brooklyn Friends School, Brooklyn

Mentors:

Paul Brauchle

Abstract:

Superfund is a federal remediation program by the United States EPA. It allows for the cleanup of thousands of contaminated sites across the nation that exist due to hazardous waste dumping. Newtown Creek and the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn are two examples of such sites. Given that a large range of differing chemicals, toxin exposure, and environmental adjustments may have changed the surrounding environments over time, it is likely that these changes will have affected the surrounding species differently, as each species has had to adapt, or not been able to adapt, to these more polluted conditions. So, we believe the samples we collect will portray species better suited to surviving in extreme environments caused by increasing pollution over long periods of time, with differences in the abundance of species depending on the distance beneath the high tide line and the overall amount of pollution present.