Volcan Mountain presentation

/ Lyda Harris

I presented my work on at Second Chance Brewery on quantifying microplastic contamination in the San Diego watersheds. Over the past few months I have been digesting, sorting, and analyzing microplastics from my trip to the San Diego region in May. Broadly, I found microplastic contamination differed between site both in quantity as well as type. Volcan Mountain Foundation, San Dieguito River Valley Conservency, and San Diego River Park Foundation did a phenomenal job attracting participants. Below is the abstract from my talk.

  • Group shot after my talk– wonderful people involved from three different organizations
  • Crowd in Second Chance

Title: Mciroplastic contamination across an urban gradient in the San Diego and San Dieguito watersheds

The Volcan Mountain Range Watershed is a key water source for San Diego and its water flows directly to the Pacific Ocean. It is vital to understand how the presence of microplastic in mountain watersheds can alter the dependent downstream communities. Over a long weekend in May (2019) Lyda travelled to Julien, CA to test microplastic contamination in the San Diego and San Dieguito watersheds. Over the course of her stay in Julien she drove 600 miles along twisting roads to access different points along the rivers. While there, Lyda met several volunteers that helped me sample water in eight different sites across the two watersheds, including the headwaters (in the mountains) and mouths (Pacific ocean) of both rivers. Through citizen science and outreach, participants received hands on experience with biology and pollution science. There were meaningful discussions with both local populations and urban communities about working collectively to find sustainable solutions to anthropogenic pollutants. In addition to watershed samples, tap water was also sampled to get an idea of human ingestion levels in the area. Back in Seattle, Lyda fully processed the samples, identified plastics under a microscope, and characterized types of debris. Facilitating discussions with local community members creates more environmentally aware populations and future generations, which in turn will create policies and behaviors that foster better stewardship of our resources.