by Andy Otto, Director of Restoration Programs

Spring is in the air and Adopt a Stream water quality monitoring season is just around the corner… Here are the monitoring dates for this year:

    • May 11, 2013 – Snapshot Day*Kerensa Kruse sampling at Pole Creek (photo: Stefan McLeod)
    • June 21-23, 2013 – AAS Water Quality Monitoring
    • July 26-28, 2013 – AAS Water Quality Monitoring
    • Sept. 26-28, 2013 – AAS Water Quality Monitoring

*Snapshot Day: One of the four annual monitoring days is coordinated with a statewide water quality monitoring day called Snapshot Day. Snapshot Day is the one day each year when the water quality of the entire Tahoe-Truckee watershed from Lake Tahoe to Pyramid Lake is measured simultaneously, providing a “snapshot” of the water quality of the region. Join hundreds of regional volunteers on May 11th and help us take a snapshot of the water quality for the entire Tahoe-Truckee watershed to kick off our monitoring season. Registration is required for Snapshot Day and is now open at SnapshotDay.org (click on “Register Here”).

Following Snapshot Day, volunteer teams continuously monitor upwards of 21 streams an additional 3 times during the season. We monitor for temperature, dissolved oxygen, pH, conductivity, and turbidity. All of our monitors are Watershed Council volunteers and have been trained; they are always willing and able to help train new team members. The monitoring can be done any time the team chooses over the three day time periods listed above and takes about two hours. Please contact Andy Otto at the Watershed Council at (530) 550-8760 x 3 or at aotto@truckeeriverwc.org for questions and to sign up. There are still streams available we’d like to monitor that have not yet been adopted by a monitoring team – come join us!

All of us at TRWC would like to extend a huge THANK YOU to all of our past and present monitoring volunteers. We’ve placed the most recent monitoring report on our website. This is the fruit of all of your labors… we simply can’t thank you enough for all of your hard work!