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Saving Loudoun’s Waters

Pollution in Loudoun County occurs every day. While we understand that solving this problem will take time, we believe meaningful change starts with small, consistent steps. Our plan focuses on both large river systems and smaller freshwater ecosystems, ensuring long-term environmental improvement.

Keep reading to learn about our detailed plan for protecting Loudoun County’s waterways.

Why Are We Doing This?

Last year, a 64-year-old man from Virginia was wading in shallow coastal brackish water near Virginia Beach with a small cut or open wound on his leg. While in the water, this wound got exposed to Vibrio Vulnificus, a naturally occurring bacterium found in warm, salty and brackish waters, including areas near the Chesapeake Bay and Potomac River. I bet you did not even know what Vibrio was, let alone this case of death. Though these deaths are rare, people can get extremely ill, and it's our job to make you aware of that. Urban runoff kills marine life, causing fish to be too toxic for consumption and disturbing the balance in biodiversity. This happens because careless corporations dump runoff as a cheaper alternative to a more bio-friendly solution. Currently, the Potomac River is too toxic to swim in because of the extreme pollution that affects this major waterway. It is too risky in a lot of areas, from the algal blooms, urban runoffs and bacterial issues.

So, they decided to gather a couple more friends and started The Aqua Track Project. Later on, after researching the quality of our rivers, we realized how polluted they were and how stable water ecosystems rarely existed in Loudoun County waters. After reading this, we decided that this is our main focus. Thus, we began our journey to create a better environment.

We have entered the Step Up Loudoun Competition as a beginning step for our journey. We first started when one of our members, Sudhit, went fishing in various rivers near the Potomac. He was extremely disappointed, as he saw no result. All he saw were algae, plastic, and plastic bottles. This really disturbed him. Then he complained to his friend, who also had the same experience.

Our Main Plan: Year One

So, what's our plan? First, we finished our research and created a contraption using an ESP32 that measures parameters for water quality that we are using. This system, after testing with tap water, sends us a two-sentence-long report describing the quality. With this contraption made, we are going around the Potomac area to test waters around that area. After we compile these findings, we add them to a map that we are going to feature on our website, called the pollution map. It is our way of visualizing these findings using a color-coded system we have constructed. The next part of the plan for year one is to compete in the Step Up Loudoun Competition to gain recognition from around the county to help us promote our goal. For this part, we decided to start using social media to convey our overall message.

Future

How we see it is that we want the future to be a place with more stable freshwater ecosystems. We hope to be a crucial stepping stone for this goal and to become an inspiration to many others who come around to try to help save water ecosystems. Maybe in 100 years, the water ecosystem could be better.

We are AquaTrack, a group of motivated middle school students dedicated to raising awareness about the growing issue of water pollution around us.

Our team consists of Sreehan Bheemreddy, Sudhit Muppa, Pratheek Kumar, Ved Ayyagari, Yug Jindal, and Nihal Sripathi. Each of us brings leadership experience and a strong interest in engineering and problem-solving.

We have seen firsthand how pollution affects not only major river systems, but also the ponds and small waterways in our own neighborhoods. These local ecosystems directly impact our daily lives, from recreation to environmental health.

Follow our journey as we design algorithms and build machines to evaluate pollution levels in local ponds and waterways. Together, we can promote the general welfare of our community. For more details, visit our Our Mission page.

What You Can Do

As the Aqua Track Project moves forward and continues to implement our plan, we understand that, realistically, it would be impossible for only a group of six scholars to fix all of the freshwater ecosystems in Loudoun County, let alone the entirety of Virginia. That is why we need YOU to take action for your community. One small step you can take to help us is to follow us on this journey. You can check our website for updates on the polluted areas, you can change your habits to prevent harmful runoff, and you can support us on social media to help raise awareness of the cause.

Why Should You Do It?

There are multiple reasons to try preventing harmful runoff. First, it helps the overall health of the water, giving us healthy water to drink and use, which is beneficial to us. Next, it helps the health of the organisms in the water. Water containing harmful chemicals can kill wildlife in rivers and oceans. Lastly, all sources of pollution that end up in the ocean start with pollution in rivers. This pollution slowly makes its way to major rivers and then to larger bodies of water until it reaches the ocean. This, again, causes the health of the water and wildlife to be impacted. So, cutting off the source of pollution can save the water and the organisms within.