Students at Long Island Sound High School Summit share research to preserve 'ecological gem' 

High school students from across Long Island presented research projects Tuesday on how to protect Long Island Sound for future generations, from reducing mercury pollution to protecting the waterway's marine life.

The third annual Long Island Sound High School summit in Kings Park featured 85 students from Commack, Brentwood, Smithtown, Oyster Bay, Northport, Riverhead, Rocky Point, and Our Lady of Mercy high schools.

"The Long Island Sound is an economic and ecological gem that needs to be preserved," said Adrienne Esposito, executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment, a Farmingdale-based group that hosted the event with the Atlantic Marine Conservation Society. "The more interest we have from the youth, the better chance the Long Island Sound has to survive and thrive."

The students presented research projects in four categories — stormwater runoff, marine life, water quality and plastic pollution.

"They're learning about the water quality that's in their area," said James Kubik, a science teacher at Northport High School. "They're seeing how they can engage with their community and the impact that their research will potentially have on the future."

Here is a closer look at some of the 38 projects:

Analyzing marine debris

Ava Mannion and Deryn O'Leary, seniors at Our Lady of Mercy in Syosset, spent the past two years collecting and analyzing marine debris found at five North Shore beaches. The most frequently found items: plastic bottle caps and shotgun shell wads used to shoot birds.

"It's harmful for the environment because it's left on the beach and gets into water," Mannion said. 

O'Leary said beaches should begin posting signs asking hunters to pick up their shells.

"We need to bring awareness to the shotgun shells on beaches," she said.

Invasive seaweed

Roughly five years ago, dasysiphonia japonica, an invasive red seaweed that originated in Eastern Asia around the coast of Japan, made its way to Long Island.

Minnahil Tariq, a senior at Brentwood High School, decided to take a closer look at dasysiphonia japonica and found that its carbon and nitrogen levels were virtually the same as three indigenous species found on the South and North shores of Long Island, indicating that the macroalga was absorbing the elements from its environment.

"[Dasysiphonia japonica] has the ability to sequester carbon, which is an amazing way to mitigate climate change as we take carbon out of the ocean and store it within the algae in what we call a biomass," Tariq said. "It helps lower ocean acidification rates, which can help slow down and alleviate climate change."

Mercury levels still high

Two years ago, a study found that mercury levels were elevated at the Northport Basin, next to a LIPA Power Station that is known to locals as the Stacks.

Kaitlin Zenyuh, a senior at Northport High School, and her team decided to determine if mercury levels in the basin, which feeds into Long Island Sound, had changed.

The students, using mercury strips, discovered the situation had not improved and levels remain at 100 parts per billion.

Zenyuh said signs should be erected advising against fishing in the basin. Elevated mercury can harm brain development at low levels and can be toxic at higher levels.

"People do fish in the Northport Basin," Zenyuh said. "So it means that if people are catching and eating these fish, they're putting themselves at risk for the issues that can come with mercury."

Storm drain murals

Storm drains are rarely visually appealing. In fact, most people rarely think about storm drains, a critical infrastructure system designed to carry rainfall runoff and other drainage through underground pipes before discharging it into local streams, rivers and other water bodies.

Sofia Fried, a junior at Smithtown High School West, and some her fellow students set out to draw more attention to keeping storm drains clear by painting murals across them with environment-friendly messages.

To date, Fried and her cohort have painted four murals on storm drains outside district schools.

"It's important to have people look at the storm drains and be able to think about how important it is to keep our environment safe," Fried said. "The water that goes into our storm drains comes out to our Long Island Sound."

By Robert Brodsky

robert.brodsky@newsday.com@BrodskyRobert

Robert Brodsky is a breaking news reporter who has worked at Newsday since 2011. He is a Queens College and American University alum.