Mitigating acidity in stream and lakes in the Shenandoah watershed- Dr. D. Downey

Our research is primarily in the area of environmental analytical chemistry. I am also interested in the analytical use of radioactive materials and in chemical separations. For more than ten years, my students and I have worked on acid deposition (acid rain) projects. The most important projects have involved mitigating acidity in streams and lakes to protect and enhance fisheries and other aquatic life. Examples of this type work may be found in our recent projects of liming the streams in the St. Mary's Wilderness in Augusta County , Virginia or in the restoration of Laurel Bed Lake in Russell County , Virginia . Students engaged in these projects collect samples from field sites, return them to the laboratory for analysis and then interpret the results. Other projects have included work on the impacts of gypsy moth defoliation on stream water chemistry, the fate and analysis of herbicides and pesticides, aquatic water chemistry habitat information for amphibians and threatened and endangered species and other environmentally oriented projects. Students engaged in these projects have presented papers at conferences and published in various journals.