Background

According to the US Census Bureau, in 2019, about 760,000 people lived in San Joaquin Valley. A large portion of their water comes from wells with contaminated water from agricultural runoff. It has high levels of nitrate, arsenic, and other pollutants (STATE WATER RESOURCES Report). This water affects a large portion of the population and their health because most of the population relies on the groundwater. Research has shown that people affected by agricultural runoff are people in rural areas such as regular civilians and farmers who are drinking these contaminated sources of water. Babies who have consumed high levels of nitrate in their system have been known to cause methemoglobinemia, or blue baby syndrome. Other results of drinking this contaminated water or raw and cooked vegetables with the nitrate have been shown to cause cancer and birth defects. Environmentally, excess nitrogen can stimulate algae growth and other aquatic plants leading to harmful algal blooms, water column, and fish mortality. Although there are water management solutions, we want to come up with a solution using bacteria in order to cultivate the ecosystem to fix this problem and hopefully prevent it by having the bacteria continue to live in the ecosystem.