What's Happening in Yonkers, NY…

School might be out for summer, but a number of students at Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers are keeping busy with a Summer Science project.

Working at the Center for the Urban River at Beczak, the students will collect water samples from the Saw Mill River and from several upstream river access points. The students will test the water for enteroccus bacteria, which typically indicates contamination. Michelle Hersh, a member of the faculty at Sarah Lawrence, will oversee the project, which will last through the summer and continue after the school year begins.

The goal of the monitoring is to see if daylighting, or exposing parts of the river previously covered by land such as parking lots, has had an impact on the contamination levels of the water. Understanding the level of contamination will allow nonprofit organizations such as Riverkeeper to make suggestions for ways to improve the quality of the water. Daylighting is thought to decrease contamination, as sunlight can kill the bacteria responsible for the pollution.

The students participating in the study, as well as members of the Yonkers Paddling and Rowing Club, and Riverkeeper, can use brochure printers to compile the data they find and present it to the public. All of the data collected is going to be made available to the public and a number of updates will be published on Sarah Lawrence's social media pages as the project goes on.