Chat with Hydrologyst, Dr. Glenn Longley.

April 12, 2001

Read our chat with Dr. Glenn Longley, Director of the Edwards Aquifer Research Center and Professor of Aquatic Biology at SWTSU. In addition to specializing in water quality investigations, Dr. Longley has done work with water pollution and endangered species.

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Submitted by Xochitl Oseguera 4/12/01

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Meta Description: 4Empowerment presents Hydrologyst, Dr. Glenn Longley.

Description: Read our chat with Dr. Glenn Longley, Director of the Edwards Aquifer Research Center and Professor of Aquatic Biology at SWTSU. In addition to specializing in water quality investigations, Dr. Longley has done work with water pollution and endangered species.

Cyberways: Welcome! Have questions about pollution that may be affecting your watershed? Have any issues with biodiversity sampling that you would like to ask an expert? Find a critter that you need help identifying? Now you can chat with aquatic biologist and hydrologist Dr. Glenn Longley to shed some light on these and other questions. The chat is about to begin! Start sending your questions now and prepare to explore the world of aquatic biology, aquifers, pollution control and careers dealing with the environment.

Dr. Longley: I appreciate the opportunity to talk with you, and I'll be glad to answer questions that you have, and if I don't have the answer, I'll do my best to tell you where you can get the answers, and again, I appreciate the opportunity to do this.

River Moon: What is your biggest concern regarding pollution of our waterways?

Dr. Longley: I think the largest problem that we have in Texas, at least, is having enough in-stream flow. As our population grows in Texas, we continually take more and more water from our waterways, and as we take that water, many of the organisms in the waterways may not have sufficient water to complete their life cycles, or we may not have sufficient water to go to our estuaries, and these estuaries are the nurseries for many marine organisms. Without sufficient freshwater inflow, salinity will increase, and many of those marine organisms will not be able to complete their life cycles. This area supports a tremendous commercial and sport fishery and food industry, fish and shellfish industry, and I think that's a major problem in Texas at this point. It's really water quantity, and as we decrease the amount of water in our streams, this leaves less for dilution of point discharges and non-point contamination that comes in all along our rivers.

Tidy: How would a layperson like me get involved in waterway cleanup?

Dr. Longley: Well, in many areas there are local groups. In San Marcos, we have the San Marcos River Foundation, and in Texas, there are many Texas watch groups that monitor water quality along the rivers. Sometimes these are sponsored by cities, or river authorities, and sometimes schools, that are interested in water quality, and that's an excellent way to become involved. One other thing, here in San Marcos, they have an annual what they call "trasher" hunt, where divers and people in canoes go down our river and get all of the trash that they can find in the river out, and the city furnishes trucks to haul it off.

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