Colorado State University-Pueblo MAGAZINE Spring/Summer 2007

Seeking
answers
to the
region’s
water
issues
The Pueblo Chieftain referred to it as a “gizmo,”
but alluded to the important applications it
might have on the quality of water and quality
of life in Southern Colorado. In May, CSU-Pueblo
unveiled a piece of equipment that will assist in a variety
of research projects concerning water quality throughout
Southern Colorado. The “gizmo” — the inductively
coupled plasma mass spectrometer — uses argon gas to
vaporize water samples at 8,000 degrees Fahrenheit in
order to measure the metal content.
It was purchased as part of a three-year, $1 million
study of Fountain Creek, but the $150,000 machine
could fill a niche in other research projects. While private
companies and utilities have similar equipment, CSU-
Pueblo is one of the few public institutions in the state to
own such a machine. Besides research, the machine gives
students a chance to see how measurements are made of
the field work they’re doing, thus enhancing research and
learning. In a recent overnight run, the machine tested
160 samples of Fountain water, which would have taken
the University’s chemistry department six months to get
the same data without the machine.
The purchase of the equipment was made possible
by an agreement with the Lower Arkansas Valley
Conservancy District, which pledged $200,000 as initial
funding to conduct a comprehensive three-year study
of water quality on Fountain Creek and the Arkansas
River. During a recent presentation to the Conservancy
District, researcher Del Nimmo presented some early
results that showed elevated levels of E. coli bacteria
during high flows on the Fountain, not to mention such
other harmful contaminants as selenium and zinc.
Part of the project funded by the Conservancy
District will determine what areas of the creek may be
toxic to the invertebrates which form the base of the
food chain, which then will provide information about
the overall biological health of the water. Samples are
read automatically, using a robotic arm that can be
programmed to dip a probe into sample vials and clean
itself. Besides water samples, the machine can read
anything that can be put into a solution: plant matter,
soils, and animal tissue, for instance.
CSU-Pueblo has received inquiries from Colorado
Division of Wildlife, U.S. Forest Service, and other
agencies about the machine, which could be useful in
sampling coal-bed methane water, a new potential
source of water under state and federal scrutiny. The
machine not only will corroborate data obtained by
other agencies, but will expand the usefulness of the
data by providing toxicological information.
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