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Tonight’s Friends of Green Lake meeting featured Dr. Rick Keil, Associate Professor from the University of Washington School of Oceanography. He leads SoundCitizen, a citizen-based water sampling network. They’ve been measuring cooking spices found in local waters and he shared some interesting data with us, such as huge spikes in cinnamon and thyme seen in the days after Thanksgiving and ice cream cones creating specific spice spikes in the summertime. Green Lake’s dominant spice is naturally-occurring cinnamon whereas other sampled lakes see mostly artificial cinnamon. Yay for Green Lake being well-protected from runoff. However, only three Green Lake samples have been submitted thus far, so if you’ve got any interest in hunkering down and collecting some water, get involved.
Cooking spices are just the beginning. SoundCitizen already measures water quality, spices, frangrances and perfumes, and industrial chemicals, but soon will add endocrine disruptors and plasticizers to the list.
Here’s the official pitch:
The SoundCitizen program investigates the connection between land and sea, specifically between the urban landscapes of Western Washington State and the marine waters of Puget Sound. Currently, we are investigating the types of cooking spices found in our local waters and using these compounds to determine the connected nature between our kitchens and Puget Sound. We need your help. We can provide scientific ‘kits’ to interested parties and then study the effects of human activity on our local waters. If you would like to collect samples, please click on the “Request a Kit” link. Thus far, we have sent out approximately 700 kits and received 60% of them back. Thank you to all of our wonderful participants!
