Thursday, August 9, 2007 - 2:10 PMCOS 122-3: Stressed stream analysis for watershed management in American Samoa
Francis Leiato, American Samoa Community College
Pollution is an ever growing problem affecting communities, world-wide. Pollution in American Samoa is partly due to a lack of awareness and education. This community-based project seeks to identify pollution sources to create awareness and action. The short term outcome will be: to locate and identify the sources of pollution entering the communities watershed causing algae blooms upon coral reefs and turtle grass beds; and educating the communities of the problems that are destroying their near shore and coastal habitats and instigate actions to correct these problems. The current rate of habitat degradation occurring in American Samoa requires immediate attention to determine and eliminate the problems. Water Quality testing, monitoring sites, stream and beach clean-ups collected within the four village sites are conducted on a weekly basis and results indicate most streams and beaches are unsafe to swim, fish are unsafe to eat and village drinking water is unsafe to drink. Data will be presented as part of a solution to solve local problems to protect our watersheds for the present and future of our island communities.