Wearing waders into waist-deep water off Nahant Beach on the coast of Massachusetts five days a week, Northeastern University graduate student Hannah Bray played pollution detective, searching for sources of contamination that at times reached astronomic levels.
What she found, said local environmentalists, could lead to important policy changes and cleaner swimming water for residents and visitors.
“We’ve been watching Nahant’s water quality go down and down for the last five years,” said Andrea Amour of Save Kings Beach, which funded Bray’s research.
“We were trying to find out where the pollution is coming from,” she said.
With state-required testing taking place only once a week, on Tuesdays, Save Kings Beach hired Bray, a master’s degree student in Northeastern’s Nahant-based Three Seas program, to fill in the gaps.
Bray collected water for analysis from Thursdays through Mondays during the summer swimming season at five points along Nahant Beach, including one in the adjoining town of Lynn. Volunteers from Save Kings Beach took over testing on Wednesdays.
“They wanted to see if daily testing would shine a light on different trends. I’m trying to see if there are any standout patterns,” Bray said. Her research, which she presented Dec. 12, included a process of elimination, since outfall pipes, the usual suspects, didn’t seem to be playing a role.
Read more at Northeastern Global News
Photo by Alyssa Stone/Northeastern University
