Haw River Case Study

The 177.028 kilometers of the Haw River extends over six counties, including Alamance, Chatham, Forsyth, Guilford, and Orange (Lucier, 1982). The River acquires runoff and wastewater from multiple areas such as Chapel Hill, Durham, local farms, and Pittsboro. Among other areas, Pittsboro contains several local farms. The nutrients that is found in our food, originally comes from the soil. Farmers needed to create healthy crops full of nutrients, so farmers needed to come up with a way to have the healthy soil, and fast. Farmers turned to fertilizer, which contains Nitrates.

Nitrates also known, as NO3 is a natural compound made of oxygen and nitrogen (Chern, 1999). Nitrates can be found in the air, soil, water, and plants (Johns & Yaremcio, 2004). Much of the nitrate in our environment comes from decomposition of plants and animal wastes (Partnership For Environmental Education and Rural Health, 2015). People, such as farmers, add nitrate to the

The highest result was located at the bridge on 64 (Highway); this might be because of the development of Chatham Park. Due to the amount of rain and construction going on in Pittsboro, that could affect the amount of Nitrates found there. There are also two local farms located very close to those locations. If the locations containing higher Nitrate levels were closer to Chatham Parks new development, maybe the testing should be closer to Chatham Park locations instead of at random. In downtown Pittsboro, there is a Chatham Park information center; this could help by getting access to the constructions zones. By having that access, it could help by finding the locations to test the waters. Having the new development of the bridge on 64, the location we tested for nitrates from farms, could contain the most once again. This could be because of the down hill affect of the road, and/or the amount of construction