Training More Eyes on NJ Water Quality
Opportunities abound for citizen scientists
StreamWatch School teaches teachers about water quality monitoring. Photo courtesy of the Watershed Institute.
Careful sampling and analysis is crucial to maintaining clean water sources and cleaning up polluted ones, but keeping constant track of water quality across thousands of miles of rivers and streams in New Jersey is a daunting task - one that would be almost impossible to do properly without crowdsourcing the work to a largely volunteer network.
A new collaboration called the NJ Watershed Watch Network, which describes itself as a “service provider for community-based water quality monitoring groups in New Jersey,” recently convened a brainstorming session of “water watchers” from the region to compare notes, share resources, and help each other out. The NJDEP runs its own water quality assessments, but due to manpower limitations, these are only completed every few years, and often do not include the smaller waterways.
StreamWatch volunteer Patti Maslanka and her family have been monitoring Cruser Brook for nine years. Photo courtesy of the Maslanka family.
So NJDEP has enlisted the help of the Watershed Institute to spearhead this effort to coordinate water monitoring by volunteer groups, and to provide access to the training, networking and resources to help those they call “citizen scientists” do the job well.
There’s more to water testing than meets the eye. Even samples that look clear to the naked eye need to be analyzed for nitrates, dissolved oxygen, bacteria, macro-invertebrates, microplastics, and more. Each of these requires a different method, training, equipment and protocol. Not all water monitors are equipped to test for all things, and priorities are often based on how the data is to be used.
There are three important uses for this data, explained Rachael Graham, Citizen Science Coordinator for the Environmental Protection Agency’s Region 2: “(1) to increase public understanding; (2) support scientific research; and (3) provide the basis for legal and policy action.” For research and policy purposes, the sampling and analysis has to be particularly rigorous.
The Watershed Institute provides an example of how volunteer data can be the first step in problem solving. Last year, one of their Stream Watchers saw signs of trouble in Cruser Brook, a stream which Patti Maslanka and her family had been monitoring for years. Her alert led to an ongoing investigation of industrial activity upstream. People can keep an eye on the Watershed Institute’s site for ongoing updates in this case.
Volunteers test the waters of the Lower Raritan. Photo courtesy of Michele Bakacs.
Similarly, a group led by Michele Bakacs of the Rutgers Cooperative Extension has been testing the Raritan River for pathogens, and making their results available for the public to consult before making plans to fish, boat or swim in waters not regularly monitored by the state.
Worried about another outbreak of the kind of cyanobacteria that shut down Lake Hopatcong last summer? In March, Montclair State is offering a workshop on how to identify harmful algal blooms.
Interested volunteers can sign up for training in a number of other ways:
There are dozens of watershed associations or riverkeeper organizations in NJ that offer training opportunities, some of which are rigorous enough to provide the level of certification needed to submit water quality data to the DEP.
Rutgers, for a modest fee, offers an Environmental Steward program to help volunteers take more effective action in their own communities.
The Watershed Institute runs a StreamWatch program, and hosts a “Stream School” where twenty Americorps “NJ Watershed Ambassadors” are trained each year to raise public awareness about water issues around the state.
Agencies and nonprofits such as the EPA, IEC, NY/NJ Harbor Estuary Program, and more, all provide some form of professional support for these volunteer efforts, whether in the form of equipment loans, lab testing, volunteer training, or moral support.
For this podcast, CivicStory spoke with Erin Stretz, assistant director of science and stewardship at the Watershed Institute, and Nancy Lawler, water quality program coordinator at the Musconetcong Watershed Association, about what it takes to implement and coordinate these ambitious volunteer efforts in New Jersey.