Ecodetectives WAC

Dear Editor,

  The cattle ranch should be shut down because they are using phosphates for their cattle and when they are using it they may be causing something to happen in the water such as algal bloom. Algal bloom is when too many water plants such as algae grow in the water and it isn't good for fish either. This can be caused by phosphates that go into the water and the phosphates may be going into James pond. The cattle ranch is near James pond and is near enough that it can contaminate the river with phosphates. Even though there are other places that could've caused the fish dying off the cattle ranch is also a suspect. Maybe even some other places are more suspected than the cattle ranch and are the cause. But what if the cattle ranch is the cause and even though it's not as suspected it still has a chance of being the cause of the fish dying.

  If algae continue to grow it will be an algal bloom that could kill most of the fish. The algal bloom creates algae and when the algae die bacteria takes dissolved oxygen from the water. A bit of algae is okay because it's a water plant and it makes oxygen in the water but too much is bad because then when they all die they get eaten by bacteria. Bacteria is a Decomposer and a decomposer breaks down dead things. The Bacteria eats away at the dead algae but also takes away dissolved oxygen as it's eating the dead algae. If this continues then the fish won't have any oxygen and with surly die sooner than later. The cycle is, 1 the Phosphates get into the pond, 2 an algal bloom starts, 3 the algae die, 4 the bacteria eat the dead plants and takes away dissolved oxygen as it eats. Then the cycle starts all over again. But the algal bloom isn't the only cause, 7 years ago the cattle in the ranch doubled in amount so my guess is that they started to use Phosphates 2 years ago to feed their cattle. Then the algal bloom took effect 5 years ago at the exact same time the fish started to die. Then the algal bloom spread to some other rivers near the area and then the fish in those rivers died too.

  The algal bloom could've started to form 5 years ago and has been taking oxygen away for 5 years causing less and less oxygen to be in James pond. Phosphates are found in manure and I don't think it's very good for fish either. The dissection results came back and they said that 21 fish died of not enough oxygen. Coincidentally most of the fish died of not enough oxygen and algal bloom takes away oxygen. I don't think that this is just a minor coincidence and if the cattle ranch is using phosphates then it's causing an algal bloom which is taking away oxygen. We did tests before the dissection results came back and the tests we did were a water life test. We tested on what kind of water life was in James pond and the what water life animals that were in James pond indicate that there isn't enough oxygen. All the tests that came back all result to one thing, there isn't enough oxygen in James pond. Who knows maybe the algae spread across the rivers and effected the other rivers as well.  This then might have resulted in other places being suspected.

  Most of the fish that died were killed by lack of oxygen 5 years ago and the algal bloom also could've started 5 years ago. Other populations of animals are being disturbed by the fish dying such as the kingfisher bird. We made a graph of birds over the years and 5 years ago the kingfisher population went down drastically. The kingfisher population goes down along with the fish population so if the fish die off so does the kingfisher population. The reason the kingfisher population is going down at the same time as the fish is because the kingfisher eat the fish from James pond and since the fish there are dying the kingfisher is also dying. If the cattle ranch is still open then the fish will die as well as the kingfisher population. There also might be other bird populations who eat fish and they might die off as well.

  In conclusion the cattle ranch should be shut down because not only will the fish die but the kingfisher bird population will go down and soon become extinct. It is also a possibility that the fish will die out as well and fishers won't have any fish to get from the pond. Even though people who need cattle have no where else to get cattle it could be the oil factory or the water slide. If the cattle ranch gets shut down Don Juan Tuno still has the farm to work at and the fish will be safe. If the cattle ranch is shut down the algal bloom will stop, the kingfisher population will be safe and healthy again, and every thing will be fine. But if the cattle ranch stays open these things will not happen everything might eve become worse than it already is.