by Kathy Whitlow, Operations Manager
Looking for a way to volunteer and make a difference in the watershed? Adopt-A-Stream (AAS) volunteers conduct two types of water quality monitoring, both of which tell us about the health of river life:
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- Chemical, Physical and Habitat monitoring
- Biological Aquatic Monitoring
Adopt-A-Stream Chemical, Physical and Habitat Monitoring
The Watershed Council has been continuously monitoring upwards of 21 streams in our watershed for the past twelve plus years. We monitor four times per year for temperature, dissolved oxygen, pH, conductivity, and turbidity and habitat characteristics. All of our monitors are volunteers. We provide the training and tools and you give us about 2 hours during each during the 4 monitoring periods in the season. Snapshot Day has come and gone but there are still 3 more monitoring periods on the calandar this season:
Come join a team or do even more by adopting a stream. Please contact Andy Otto at the Watershed Council at (530) 550-8760 x 3 or at aotto@truckeeriverwc.org for questions or to sign up.
Adopt-A-Stream Biological Aquatic Monitoring
The Truckee River Aquatic Monitoring group of the Adopt-A-Stream program visits about 5 streams each summer to collect biological samples and habitat data. During the winter we meet in the lab to identify the benthic macroinvertebrate (aka aquatic insects) in the samples taken from area streams. Field collection takes about 3-4 hours. There are 4 collection dates coming up:
Sampling sites vary, so please contact Beth Christman at the Watershed Council at 550-8760 x 1 or bchristman@truckeeriverwc.org with questions or to sign up.