Volunteers Testing the Waters

  • Volunteers across the country gather samples and data for biologists who don't have the resources to get into the field. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Most of us assume the government is keeping track of environmental
issues such as pollution in water. In reality, most pollution problems
are first detected by citizens. Lester Graham reports in some parts of
the nation, volunteers step in to make sure their local streams and
lakes are clean:

Transcript

Most of us assume the government is keeping track of environmental
issues such as pollution in water. In reality, most pollution problems
are first detected by citizens. Lester Graham reports in some parts of
the nation, volunteers step in to make sure their local streams and
lakes are clean:


Rochelle Breitenbach and Mary Bajcz are trudging through the snow,
winding their way through a thicket to find a small creek. It’s 14
degrees above zero. And they plan to go wading. They’re lugging in a
fine-mesh net, some hip boots, and an orange 5 gallon bucket of trays and
specimen jars.


Breitenbach says they’re headed for a pristine creek that eventually
becomes a river, the Huron River in southeast Michigan:


“One thing about this spot is that it’s really close to the headwaters
of the Huron River. So, it’s a really good indicator of what they’re
going to find downstream too. This has traditionally been one of the
best spots to collect in the entire watershed.”


They’re just one team of many that take samples up and down the river.
They’re looking for a certain kind of bug, stonefly larvae. Stoneflies
are good fish food and they are very susceptible to pollution. They’re
considered an indicator species. If stoneflies are there and healthy,
it’s a good indication the stream is healthy:


“Their food source is on decomposing leaves, so that’s
where you find them. And then, I will get some of the leaf packs in
the net and then I’ll dump it in the tray. And then we’ll add a little
warm water so they don’t freeze. And then we’ll sort through the leaf
packs and then look for stoneflies.”


Breitenbach cautiously makes her way down the bank, across the ice and
into the water.


She’s taking her first sample in this open water. Bajcz steps out onto
the ice, holding a plastic tray so Breitenbach can empty the net’s contents
into the plastic tray. But… the ice can’t take the weight.


Luckily Bajcz did not fall into the water. In these temperatures, that
would have been bad. They scramble up the snowy bank and start
sorting through the debris in the trays to find stonefly larvae.


Stoneflies have two tails. Mayflies have three tails. So, they’re
squinting to see what they’ve got:


Mary: “Oh, there’s one! Right there. Right, Rochelle? That one?”


Rochelle: “I left my glasses in the car.”


Mary: “Okay. I’m going to collect it. I think it is.”


Rochelle: Yes, go ahead and take it.”


Mary: “Oh look! That’s a mayfly. Three.”


Rochelle: “Yeah, see all the tails.”


Mary: “Look at that one! That’s two. That’s got two. See?”


Rochelle: “Yep.”


Mary: “Wow. (whisper) That’s gigantic.”


Rochelle: “That’s why we love this site (laughs).”


Once they find one, they drop the bug into a jar of alcohol. After the
thrill of finding the stoneflies, they hate to kill them, but they have
to preserve the samples for biologists.


Rochelle: “The whole jar goes back and Jo goes through and identifies
everything.”


Jo is Jo Latimore. She’s the Huron River Watershed Council’s
ecologist. She says without the volunteers’ efforts all along the
river, they’d never be able to monitor this river system as well, but
there are drawbacks to using volunteers.


“The first impression is that volunteer data may not be as trustworthy
as anyone else’s, any trained professional’s data. But, our volunteers
have been trained and then we also do quality control checks, just like
the government would do with their agencies where we’ll go out side-by-
side and send professionals out with the volunteers and compare their
results to make sure that they’re trustworthy.”


Latimore says the end result of volunteer surveys like this one is a
steady monitoring program that fills in the blanks left by government
agencies that can’t do the work.


“The agencies that do have the responsibility for checking the quality
of our waterbodies really have very limited budgets, very limited
staff. For example, in Michigan, the professional biologist from the
DEQ can only get to a particular watershed every five years. And to
really be able to stay on top of the conditions in a stream, you need
to monitor more often than that.”


Voluntary watershed organizations all across the nation assist government agencies in
monitoring the streams and lakes. But in many parts of the nation,
there are no volunteer agencies. The water quality is rarely checked,
and the only time anyone realizes there’s a problem is when there’s a
huge fish kill or other pollution problems that get the attention of
people who live nearby or people who fish the streams. And nearly
everyone agrees that’s not a very good way to keep water clean.


For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Rain Barrels and Rain Runoff

  • One city is asking people to use rain barrels like this one to prevent rain runoff that can overload drains and creeks. (Photo courtesy of the Huron River Watershed Council)

As cities cover more and more surface with pavement and buildings,
it’s taking a toll on the environment. Heavy rains flood off the
impervious surfaces and overload drains and creeks. Some cities are
trying new methods to control the problem. As Tracy Samilton
reports, Ann Arbor, Michigan is asking its residents to play a role by
catching their home’s rainwater in rain barrels:

Transcript

As cities cover more and more surface with pavement and buildings,
it’s taking a toll on the environment. Heavy rains flood off the
impervious surfaces and overload drains and creeks. Some cities are
trying new methods to control the problem. As Tracy Samilton
reports, Ann Arbor, Michigan is asking its residents to play a role by
catching their home’s rainwater in rain barrels:



Miller’s Creek in Ann Arbor is not a pretty creek. Part of it runs
alongside a congested four-lane road in one of the most developed
areas of the city. Since there’s almost no place left for rain to seep
slowly in the ground, it pours off the road and parking lots and
rooftops right into the creek:


“What you can see is all the roots that are exposed and very high
banks…”


Laura Rubin is head of the Huron River Watershed Council. Miller’s
Creek is part of the watershed. She says rain storms carry pollutants
and sediment into the creek, and sweep away animal and plant
species that might otherwise live here:


“This is not a healthy creek we call this impaired when they get flows
they’re so strong that they’re tearing away the banks.”


Rubin would like Miller’s Creek to be vibrant with life again one day.
But a lot of changes will have to happen first. She says nearby
businesses will have to build wetlands to retain their storm water.
The city will have to repave the roads to allow more drainage. And in
such a heavily populated area, residents will have to do something
too. Rubin says the first step is teaching people that a single point
source of pollution like a big factory is no longer the biggest threat to
water in their neighborhood:


“Now the main source of pollution is non-point pollution and that’s
us.”


Rubin says rain barrels could play a significant role in healing Miller’s
Creek. Rain barrels are just like they sound: big barrels that collect
water from a home’s rain gutters, to be dispersed later onto lawns or
gardens. One rain barrel can retain up to thirty percent of storm
water falling on a house. Under a dark grey sky that bodes rain,
Dave Aikins shows off his:


“It’s a big, uh, green trash can-like object…aesthetically, uh, I’m not
prepared to defend it.”


Aikins owns a medium-size house in downtown Ann Arbor. Now, with
a rain barrel installed on one side, he’ll catch half the rain that falls on
the house. He uses it to water his garden, but says someday he
might rig it so he can use the water for his laundry machine. A
neighbor kiddy-corner from him has installed one too, and they’ve
had neighborly arguments about proper installation and usage. He
likes how the rain barrel makes him feel.


“Living in an urban area, there’s no direct impact on you whether it
rains or not and this puts you back connected to natural environment,
so you start to care about whether you get your rain today.”

Aikins and other city residents have more than environmental
reasons to install rain barrels. The city water department is using a
carrot and stick approach to encourage their adoption. Installing a
rain barrel gets you a modest discount on the City of Ann Arbor’s new
storm water rates. Tom McMurtry is head of the new program:


“Under the old system, we charged one flat rate for every single
household whether you were an 800-square foot home in the city or a
5,000 square-foot mega-mansion.”


Now, the city will charge four different rates depending on the amount
of impervious pavement and size of the roof on the house. The
highest rate is three times more than the former flat rate, to better
reflect a big home’s impact on the city’s drains and creeks.
McMurtrie says about (blank) people have installed a rain barrel and
applied for the credit. He’d like to see at least 3,000 rain barrels
installed throughout the city. He doesn’t know how long it will take
to accomplish that:


“But every little bit helps.”


It’s an experiment in progress to see if having lots of rain barrels
around Miller’s Creek will help restore it. According to Laura Rubin
of the Huron River Watershed Council, it took about fifty years to
damage the creek this badly. It could take another fifty to bring it
back to health.


For the Environment Report, I’m Tracy Samilton.

Related Links

Volunteers Testing the Waters

  • Volunteers across the country gather samples and data for biologists who don't have the resources to get into the field. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Most of us assume the government is keeping track of environmental
issues such as pollution in water. In reality, most pollution problems
are first detected by citizens. Lester Graham reports in some parts of
the nation, volunteers step in to make sure their local streams and
lakes are clean:

Transcript

Most of us assume the government is keeping track of environmental
issues such as pollution in water. In reality, most pollution problems
are first detected by citizens. Lester Graham reports in some parts of
the nation, volunteers step in to make sure their local streams and
lakes are clean:


Rochelle Breitenbach and Mary Bajcz are trudging through the snow,
winding their way through a thicket to find a small creek. It’s 14
degrees above zero. And they plan to go wading. They’re lugging in a
fine-mesh net, some hip boots, and an orange 5 gallon bucket of trays and
specimen jars.


Breitenbach says they’re headed for a pristine creek that eventually
becomes a river, the Huron River in southeast Michigan:


“One thing about this spot is that it’s really close to the headwaters
of the Huron River. So, it’s a really good indicator of what they’re
going to find downstream too. This has traditionally been one of the
best spots to collect in the entire watershed.”


They’re just one team of many that take samples up and down the river.
They’re looking for a certain kind of bug, stonefly larvae. Stoneflies
are good fish food and they are very susceptible to pollution. They’re
considered an indicator species. If stoneflies are there and healthy,
it’s a good indication the stream is healthy:


“Their food source is on decomposing leaves, so that’s
where you find them. And then, I will get some of the leaf packs in
the net and then I’ll dump it in the tray. And then we’ll add a little
warm water so they don’t freeze. And then we’ll sort through the leaf
packs and then look for stoneflies.”


Breitenbach cautiously makes her way down the bank, across the ice and
into the water.


She’s taking her first sample in this open water. Bajcz steps out onto
the ice, holding a plastic tray so Breitenbach can empty the net’s contents
into the plastic tray. But… the ice can’t take the weight.


Luckily Bajcz did not fall into the water. In these temperatures, that
would have been bad. They scramble up the snowy bank and start
sorting through the debris in the trays to find stonefly larvae.


Stoneflies have two tails. Mayflies have three tails. So, they’re
squinting to see what they’ve got:


Mary: “Oh, there’s one! Right there. Right, Rochelle? That one?”


Rochelle: “I left my glasses in the car.”


Mary: “Okay. I’m going to collect it. I think it is.”


Rochelle: Yes, go ahead and take it.”


Mary: “Oh look! That’s a mayfly. Three.”


Rochelle: “Yeah, see all the tails.”


Mary: “Look at that one! That’s two. That’s got two. See?”


Rochelle: “Yep.”


Mary: “Wow. (whisper) That’s gigantic.”


Rochelle: “That’s why we love this site (laughs).”


Once they find one, they drop the bug into a jar of alcohol. After the
thrill of finding the stoneflies, they hate to kill them, but they have
to preserve the samples for biologists.


Rochelle: “The whole jar goes back and Jo goes through and identifies
everything.”


Jo is Jo Latimore. She’s the Huron River Watershed Council’s
ecologist. She says without the volunteers’ efforts all along the
river, they’d never be able to monitor this river system as well, but
there are drawbacks to using volunteers.


“The first impression is that volunteer data may not be as trustworthy
as anyone else’s, any trained professional’s data. But, our volunteers
have been trained and then we also do quality control checks, just like
the government would do with their agencies where we’ll go out side-by-
side and send professionals out with the volunteers and compare their
results to make sure that they’re trustworthy.”


Latimore says the end result of volunteer surveys like this one is a
steady monitoring program that fills in the blanks left by government
agencies that can’t do the work.


“The agencies that do have the responsibility for checking the quality
of our waterbodies really have very limited budgets, very limited
staff. For example, in Michigan, the professional biologist from the
DEQ can only get to a particular watershed every five years. And to
really be able to stay on top of the conditions in a stream, you need
to monitor more often than that.”


Voluntary watershed organizations all across the nation assist government agencies in
monitoring the streams and lakes. But in many parts of the nation,
there are no volunteer agencies. The water quality is rarely checked,
and the only time anyone realizes there’s a problem is when there’s a
huge fish kill or other pollution problems that get the attention of
people who live nearby or people who fish the streams. And nearly
everyone agrees that’s not a very good way to keep water clean.


For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links