Scioly.org

Yeah, I wrote it, as well as the Muscatel Water Quality test.

Haha I felt like that question was pretty familiar xP.
Having trouble in the waste water treatment.
I can't really find any site that would explain it in an easier way.
Does anyone know a site where it explains it well?

Has anyone run into a problem with the increments on their salinometer? My 0% and 10% saturation lines seem to be about 2 cm apart every time. Leaves hardly any room for the "in-between" increments.

If you're using the simple salinometer that's listed on the national website (which is alright, I used one of them my senior year and it was definitely accurate enough, and only took one meeting to build and calibrate), then you have to try to get as tall and thin of a container as possible. A graduated cylinder works best in my experience (I think I used a 100 mL one), but if you find a container that you like better then by all means use that.

stroudchick wrote:Has anyone run into a problem with the increments on their salinometer? My 0% and 10% saturation lines seem to be about 2 cm apart every time. Leaves hardly any room for the "in-between" increments.

Yeah, that happens. I would say just try your best to work with it.

Watergirl wrote:Haha I felt like that question was pretty familiar xP.
Having trouble in the waste water treatment.
I can't really find any site that would explain it in an easier way.
Does anyone know a site where it explains it well?

In all seriousness, wikipedia is a very valuable resource for practically any WQ topic. The USGS is also helpful. You can also find some fairly informative diagrams with a simple google search.

Is fleshy algae the same as seaweed?

As far as I know, the terms seaweed and fleshy macroalgae are interchangeable.

Could you guys interpret these questions? What would you guys have answered? (This was from the NJ Water Quality C test)

1. What is groundwater?
a) well water
b) water from the ground
I've been hearing from teams that A is the right answer. But why is that? Groundwater is the water found between the pore spaces in the ground. Well water is just a type of groundwater. (The answer could have also been B.) What would you guys answer?

2. What does not affect water quality?
a) agriculture runoff
b) leaky septic tank
c) mining operations
d) rainfall

Would the answer be D, if you conveniently ignore acid rain?

3) T or F. Fecal coliform bacteria indicates the presence of pathogens.

According to various sources, such as USGS and the Water Quality Monitoring book, more fecal coliform correlates with more pathogens. It does not directly confirm the presence, but indicates the relative likelihood of pathogens.

In such a question, would you ignore the shades of meaning and just go with "true"?

4) When a soil becomes______, it will partition some of the water into groundwater.
???

1) This is a terribly written question. Squares are rectangles, but you can't say that a square is the answer to "what is a rectangle?"
But the second option is just wrong, so I'd say A)

2) Yes. Although technically rainfall could affect turbidity... Nah.

3) I would go with true, yes. Fecal coliform is an indicator of pathogens in water; if there's fecal coliform, chances are there's a pathogen or two.
Also poorly written, though.

4) I have no clue. Percolated? That doesn't sound right. I don't know.
I feel like this could just be "saturated" or "filled with water" or something like that, too.