{"generated":"2026-09-26T10:36:41Z","source":"US Geological Survey Water Science School (public domain), one page per characteristic","method":"Each cause term is published only if it appears as a whole word in the article text (the page's Overview tab, the element with id=\"overview\", without navigation, header, footer or asides; the related-content tabs are not read) of the USGS page cited beside it, checked by fetching that page. Each kept term carries the sentence it appears in, and the article text is kept with its sha256. Terms the source does not contain are dropped, and the drops are listed.","counts":{"characteristics_published":7,"characteristics_attempted":7,"characteristics_failed":0},"plain":"For each thing measured in the water, these are the causes the cited USGS page names in its article text, each shown with the sentence it appears in. It is here so that a high reading beside a data centre can be read the way a scientist would read it \u2014 as something with several well-understood causes, most of which have nothing to do with computing. WAPR does not determine which cause applies at any station, and nothing here says a data centre is responsible for anything.","caveats":["This lists what CAN produce a reading, never what DID. No cause here is attributed to any facility, operator or station.","The list is what the cited page says, filtered to terms that page actually contains. It is not exhaustive science, and a cause absent from a general-audience page is not thereby ruled out.","A data centre appears among these candidates only where the source itself names an industrial or thermal route. Where it does not, its absence is the honest answer."],"failed":null,"causes":{"ecoli":{"label":"E. coli bacteria","authority":"US Geological Survey \u2014 Water Science School","authority_url":"https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/bacteria-and-e-coli-water","known_causes":["sewage","animal waste"],"terms_dropped_not_found_in_source":["livestock","wildlife","septic","runoff","manure"],"evidence":{"sewage":"coli in water is a strong indicator of sewage or animal waste contamination.","animal waste":"coli in water is a strong indicator of sewage or animal waste contamination."},"source_sha256":"e438c34e9f8407af7722cc6b67658dca06443043abf9bf253c413748e2231ab7","source_text_kept":"data/water_causes/ecoli-2026-09-26.txt"},"spcond":{"label":"specific conductance","authority":"US Geological Survey \u2014 Water Science School","authority_url":"https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/conductivity-electrical-conductance-and-water","known_causes":["dissolved solids","salt","mineral"],"terms_dropped_not_found_in_source":["geology","agricultural","industrial","sewage","clay"],"evidence":{"dissolved solids":"Follow me to the Chloride, Salinity, and Dissolved Solids website!","salt":"The most common dissolved substances are salts, common table salt (sodium chloride (NaCl)) is the one we know best.","mineral":"It doesn't matter if the water comes out of your kitchen faucet, is in a swimming pool or dog dish, comes out of the ground or falls from the sky, the water will contain significant amounts of dissolved substances, minerals, and chemicals."},"source_sha256":"303b6f0995f3fefde96e17968081f74f24f0f0757afb70558d48efa5ad961690","source_text_kept":"data/water_causes/spcond-2026-09-26.txt"},"do":{"label":"dissolved oxygen","authority":"US Geological Survey \u2014 Water Science School","authority_url":"https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/dissolved-oxygen-and-water","known_causes":["temperature","organic","nutrient","decay","salinity"],"terms_dropped_not_found_in_source":["algae","altitude"],"evidence":{"temperature":"Some measurements, such as temperature , pH , and specific conductance are taken almost every time water is sampled and investigated, no matter where in the U.S.","organic":"Bacteria in water can consume oxygen as organic matter decays.","nutrient":"The formation of oxygen-depleted subsurface waters has been associated with nutrient-rich (nitrogen and phosphorus ) discharge from the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers.","decay":"Bacteria in water can consume oxygen as organic matter decays.","salinity":"The oxygen content of surface waters of normal salinity in the summer is typically more than 8 milligrams per liter (8 mg/L); when oxygen concentrations are less than 2 mg/L, the water is defined as hypoxic (CENR, 2000)."},"source_sha256":"37ad2cd64056d85c6fd3dff41c29b8b5805fabd59622a5a103d855bd73fa7c99","source_text_kept":"data/water_causes/do-2026-09-26.txt"},"temp_c":{"label":"water temperature","authority":"US Geological Survey \u2014 Water Science School","authority_url":"https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/temperature-and-water","known_causes":["season","air temperature","depth","groundwater","runoff"],"terms_dropped_not_found_in_source":["shade","industrial"],"evidence":{"season":"Many lakes experience a \"turning\" of its water layers when the seasons change.","air temperature":"It shows a normal bell-curve type of pattern that closely follows seasonal air temperature patterns.","depth":"You can see that in May the surface starts to warm (green color), but the warming only goes down to about 5 meters in depth.","groundwater":"Geological Survey (USGS) has been measuring how much water is flowing in rivers, determining the water levels of groundwater, and collecting water samples to describe the quality of those waters for over a century.","runoff":"View Media Details A hot parking lot can cause heated runoff to enter streams."},"source_sha256":"d30ed3be850a8a147cc4cbc1e2ea1f9b102bcd9c80c313baf57a9407bbb42b33","source_text_kept":"data/water_causes/temp_c-2026-09-26.txt"},"turb":{"label":"turbidity","authority":"US Geological Survey \u2014 Water Science School","authority_url":"https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/turbidity-and-water","known_causes":["sediment","algae"],"terms_dropped_not_found_in_source":["erosion","runoff","construction","urban","storm"],"evidence":{"sediment":"Other water, such as the creek behind your house after a rainstorm, is likely to be highly turbid\u2014brown with floating sediment.","algae":"Materials that cause water to be turbid include clay, silt, very tiny inorganic and organic matter, algae, dissolved colored organic compounds, and plankton and other microscopic organisms."},"source_sha256":"f88c96b8e446a85ee9944b95fee932464842d73cd6d9c4fc7e5cce23fbfa746b","source_text_kept":"data/water_causes/turb-2026-09-26.txt"},"p":{"label":"phosphorus","authority":"US Geological Survey \u2014 Water Science School","authority_url":"https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/phosphorus-and-water","known_causes":["fertilizer","manure","sewage","detergent","erosion","runoff","wastewater"],"terms_dropped_not_found_in_source":null,"evidence":{"fertilizer":"\u2022 Water Science School HOME \u2022 Water Properties topics \u2022 Water Quality topics \u2022 Phosphorus and Water Phosphorus is a common constituent of agricultural fertilizers, manure, and organic wastes in sewage and industrial effluent.","manure":"\u2022 Water Science School HOME \u2022 Water Properties topics \u2022 Water Quality topics \u2022 Phosphorus and Water Phosphorus is a common constituent of agricultural fertilizers, manure, and organic wastes in sewage and industrial effluent.","sewage":"\u2022 Water Science School HOME \u2022 Water Properties topics \u2022 Water Quality topics \u2022 Phosphorus and Water Phosphorus is a common constituent of agricultural fertilizers, manure, and organic wastes in sewage and industrial effluent.","detergent":"State laws to reduce phosphorus coming from wastewater-treatment facilities and to restrict the use of phosphorus detergents has caused large reductions in the amounts of phosphorus in the Chattahoochee River south of Atlanta, Georgia and i","erosion":"Soil erosion is a major contributor of phosphorus to streams.","runoff":"In 2011, heavy snow fell in the winter and spring, resulting in snowmelt runoff, followed by heavy rainfall in April.","wastewater":"This has been a very serious problem f or West Point Lake in the Atlanta, Georgia, area,hat receives Atlanta's treated waste water, In metropolitan Atlanta, phosphorus coming into streams from point sources, primarily wastewater-treatment f"},"source_sha256":"c897eed6088795305267a53a88338c0cb967e191abfab841aeb25702f21fbad4","source_text_kept":"data/water_causes/p-2026-09-26.txt"},"no3":{"label":"nitrate","authority":"US Geological Survey \u2014 Water Science School","authority_url":"https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/nitrogen-and-water","known_causes":["fertilizer","manure","sewage","atmospheric","runoff","wastewater"],"terms_dropped_not_found_in_source":["septic"],"evidence":{"fertilizer":"View Media Details Fertilizers and other chemicals are applied to crop fields worldwide.","manure":"Fields have been leveled and modified to efficiently drain off excess water that may fall as precipitation or from irrigation practices .The fate of nitrogen in a field depends both on the form of fixed nitrogen (as ammonia, nitrate, or org","sewage":"Due to runoff, excess chemicals can find their way into water bodies and harm water quality.Credit: Pixabay - Creative Commons Although nitrogen is abundant naturally in the environment, it is also introduced through sewage and fertilizers.","atmospheric":"The National Atmospheric Deposition Program has developed maps showing nitrate patterns, such as the one below showing the spatial pattern of nitrate at selected sampling sites for 2023 .","runoff":"Due to runoff, excess chemicals can find their way into water bodies and harm water quality.Credit: Pixabay - Creative Commons Although nitrogen is abundant naturally in the environment, it is also introduced through sewage and fertilizers.","wastewater":"Wastewater-treatment facilities that do not specifically remove nitrogen can also lead to excess levels of nitrogen in surface or groundwater ."},"source_sha256":"0320b37993897e46bdfcbd69cf4d5c3de74ab97c9f86d9b99055300691d7360f","source_text_kept":"data/water_causes/no3-2026-09-26.txt"}}}