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imagine a future that looks like this or
this what does it look like to me it
looks polluted dirty and for lack of a
better word disgusting the water is so
polluted people are getting sick
drinking from it but hey there's no
choice no choice except if you are super
rich in which case you could probably
afford to buy fresh drinking water which
is now so expensive it's now worth more
than oil am i scaring you well this is
what is happening in some parts of the
world today the future is already here
and this is what I'm proposing as a
solution today let's do something dirty
to clean our dirty water now it sounds
counterintuitive I know
but hear me out because I'll tell you
the story of our our research team was
able to do exactly just that so growing
up in a metropolitan city in Canada I
never really had to worry about getting
access to fresh drinking water I
actually loved drinking from the tap so
why do I even care about this issue well
it all started in 6th grade when our
teacher asked us to present an
environmental issue of our choice and a
really good tip guys if you want really
good grades especially for those of you
who self kids or a student still is find
a really big word that nobody
understands and use it because I did and
that word is eutrophication it's a 14
letter word and in Latin if you break it
down you is good and troph means food it
sounds like something you want at your
kitchen table right
except it's not really good food for us
but really great food for cyanobacteria
or blue-green algae it's more harmless
name for it like Microcystis aeruginosa
now these guys might look super small
and unassuming but in reality they're
extremely toxic if you have too much of
them around it's all about balance and
when they start to spread their called
algal blooms and you've probably seen
them before when you went canoeing on a
lake in summer it's like having too many
relatives at your party soon they're all
gonna be screaming and killing each
other except these are definitely the
guys you don't want to invite your party
when these bacteria start to spread
they're called harmful algal blooms or
HAP's for short and has released a bunch
of cyano toxins into their environment
causing a bunch of health issues for all
organisms and one of these cyano toxins
is called micro systems and micro
systems specifically target the liver by
inhibiting the protein phosphatase now
protein phosphatase eclis acts as a
traffic controller in our cells telling
us which process to be active and which
not to be so you can imagine that having
this protein inactive can cause a bunch
of issues
long-term exposure can result in liver
cancer and acute effects include
gastrointestinal problems like diarrhea
vomiting and stomach aches it can also
cause severe headaches and fever but
that's not the only thing HAP's do they
basically choke the water from oxygen
causing a bunch of marine animals like
fish and everything else that depend on
it to die because it is so dangerous the
World Health Organization has mandated
the concentrations of microsystem not
exceed one part per billion to put that
into perspective that's like putting one
drop in 500 barrels of water in Canada
that limit is slightly higher at one
point five parts per billion which is a
slightly bigger drop you get the picture
but we have to go to the root of the
problem and remember about those
relatives I told you about ere party
well if you take away some of the food
and maybe less of them will come or at
least the ones that are annoying and
picky anyways and to do that with
blue-green algae all you have to do is
get rid of their favorite food which is
phosphorus now is not that it's there
but that there's too much of it again
it's about balance
so what's knocking it off balance well
humans of course the most prevalent
source of nutrient pollution is actually
in your own poop and yeah this guy looks
cute and all but it literally stinks as
you guys can probably imagine and while
in developed countries this isn't much
of an issue with our developed water
systems think of fertilizer runoff into
water from agriculture and Industry
think about factory farms we have
millions of animals being crammed into a
tiny building producing tons and tons of
poop think about climate change and
warming temperatures that are sustaining
the growth of algae as a researcher this
is sort of beyond my control so what are
the solutions well you can reduce the
concentrations of things by ads orbing
them onto material now adsorption
absorption they practically sound
similar right but they're totally
different concepts absorption refers to
something that enters a material like
water does to a sponge adsorption is
when you have something that attaches or
adheres onto a surface of material like
paint to wall the overall effect is like
enticing your relatives to go to a disco
so you can have all the fun here's a
picture of one of my graduate students
or the graduate students I'm working
with holding a piece of clay that she
collected from Fort Nelson BC and clays
are found in the
made out of a combination of aluminum
silica and oxygen and they have certain
properties which allow compounds to be
attracted to a surface and what are
those properties you might ask well
let's get electric so you know how
people say opposites attract well not
only does it explain your miserable
dating life but it also explains the
reason why adsorption occurs basically
when you have a positively charged
surface negatively charged compounds
will be attracted to the surface and
vice versa and with clays this happens
some of you might call this love at
first sight but for scientists
we call it columbic interactions the
name of the next great rom-com but
anyways this happens more often than you
think doctors use the same principle to
remove toxins in your body using
activated charcoal and your nose is the
same with bacteria and dirt but here at
the northern analytical laboratory
service or nows for short at the
University of northern British Columbia
we find that clays have great potential
to remove microsystems and phosphorus
using absorption now this is a great
discovery because unlike other methods
of tox removal clays are more
environmentally friendly since they are
sourced locally they were found as part
of their natural environment and they
have the potential to be reused as I
mentioned before these clays were
actually found accidentally by
construction company when they were
excavating the ground for building
developments in fort nelson okay well
here's still not convinced that
something dirty can clean our dirty
water right so here are our results
using an instrument called HPLC we find
there's a peak when an algal toxin
appears in the water now when we mix
that with clay you find that peak is
gone it disappears it's no longer there
the same can be said of phosphorus with
an instrument called
icp-oes unfortunately icp-oes doesn't
give a really good visual so you're
gonna have to take the machines word for
it but overall we find that clays can
absorb microsystems and phosphorus with
over ninety percent efficiency which is
great news okay so does that mean that
we should go digging clays and
depositing them in our water while this
is promising there's a lot more work to
be done like how do we remove phosphorus
and rye persistence from clays without
leaching them back into the water and is
there the potential to reuse these clays
indefinitely or at all and what are
exactly in these clays that are causing
the absorption the questions we can ask
our endless and research takes a
painfully long time to answer them
you'll find that even if research does
generate knowledge it does have the
unfortunate habit of isolating people
from that knowledge even though it's
supposed to do the exact opposite
because even if we do use clays to
adsorb phosphorus and microsystems it's
just a band-aid solution there's only so
much we can absorb before things start
going down the drain again no pun
intended so just because we have clays
as a solution doesn't mean we can go
polluting our water with no consequences
but hey why are we even talking about
purification isn't the earth filled with
water so what if a few water bodies are
have infested we don't drink from green
water well let's think about it
water is life without it everything on
earth as we know it wouldn't exist you
are made of sixty percent water and
without it you would certainly die but
right now we're running into a water
quality crisis around the world people
are using water at an unprecedented rate
the water that we do have is extremely
contaminated according to the National
Geographic only 2.5 percent of the earth
is fresh drinking water even less of it
is accessible only 1% so we have to
purify it there is no other way and it's
not only happening in developing
countries remember that photo I showed
you before with all that green stuff
well here it is again can you guess
where that is that is Lake Erie
filled with Habs containing Microcystis
bacteria because of haps the whole city
of Toledo and Ohio and is 500,000
residents were left without fresh
drinking water for several days and why
did this happen because that green stuff
spreads and the toxins it produces
they're invisible you can't see them
Lake Erie and the other Great Lakes
represent 21 percent of the Earth's
fresh drinking water in Canada we are so
lucky to have it in our backyard so
let's take care of our water and that
responsibility doesn't only fall on me
as a researcher this is where you come
in you need to take this knowledge into
your own hands
these halves are caused by humans
through their activities so surely we
have the power to stop it and I will try
to help you with that
first of all let's prevent phosphorus
from entering our water in the first
place
that means checking your fertilizers to
see if there's phosphorus in them has
phosphorus opt for something else also
use water only when necessary
that means when it's raining outside
please don't use your water sprinkler
because it's going to cause those
nutrients to go into our water from the
soil also
reduce your consumption of meat don't
support factory farms not only is it
going to help the animals and you to be
healthy but also it will keep our water
ecosystems healthy as well these are all
small alterations to your daily life
they will make a huge difference and we
can't do this alone
here at Nell's everyone is working on an
aspect of eutrophication in one way or
another there is no one solution to
stopping you travail keishon it requires
the cooperation of researchers
scientists politicians lawyers you name
it and especially people in our
communities and by the term community I
use it broadly because this story has to
do with more than just us it's about
being part of a big and happy family and
yes that includes your annoying
relatives too because even though I've
been criticizing this concept of
families this whole time we share this
earth whether we like to or not the
water is no exception chances are if we
dump something into someone's backyard
it will end up in ours too
or if you're like my lab colleagues
you'll hate it when I leave my mess
around in the lab for you to clean up
I'm sorry guys so what have I learned
since I was 12 years old about this word
eutrophication well I learned that not
only is it a big problem it's a big and
dirty problem and dirty problems require
dirty solutions literally with clays and
also with you we need to realize the you
in eutrophication the future is right at
our doorstep and we have a choice in
what it becomes
do you want a future where our water is
no longer drinkable I think you know the
answer to that and even if we have all
the best solutions in the whole wide
world it will take a long time to
implement if you don't change what's in
here and in here
so let's drink to that thank you
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