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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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[RUNNING WATER]

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The mountain
streams that we work

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in are small headwater streams.

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You can roll up your pant
legs and walk across.

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They're not real big.

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But there's a lot going
on beneath the surface.

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There's a lot going on with
the life and the chemistry.

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The Shenandoah Watershed
Study started in 1979

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as a collaborative project
between the University

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of Virginia and the
National Park Service,

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and then expanded to
streams beyond the park.

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35 years ago, we
were just beginning

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to understand the
effects that pollutants

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were having on the atmosphere.

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By measuring weekly,
water chemistry,

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and understanding the
hydrology of these systems,

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we're getting information
from the entire watershed.

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Sulfuric acid is one of
the components of acid rain

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that changes the pH
of the stream system.

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And that change in pH is crucial
to facilitating other chemical

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reactions, which
impact the habitat

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quality for the fish
and everything that

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lives in the stream.

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We also bring in students
to pose new questions,

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collect new data,
and also, we're

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trying to understand
new pollutants

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that we hadn't thought
about, back 35 years ago.

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Mercury is a hazardous material.

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It hurts human life.

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It hurts other forms of life.

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And we're going back
hundreds of years.

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And we're seeing that as soon as
the Industrial Revolution came.

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We see this huge increase.

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We've made a lot of progress,
and we've impacted legislation,

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and we have cleaned
up the atmosphere

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for targeted pollutants.

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But we're not back
to the natural health

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of these systems.

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35 Years ago, we didn't
know what was going on

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in this environment.

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We have a much
better understanding

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of what the impacts
are of acid deposition,

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and how different streams
recover differently,

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and why that is.

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But it also gives us the
understanding to move forward,

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to be prepared to answer
the next emerging questions.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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