United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Office of Water
4503
EPA 800-F-93-008
September 1993
©ERA Volunteer Monitoring
What is Volunteer
Monitoring?
What is EPAs Role
in Volunteer
Monitoring?
How Many
Programs
Are There?
Across the country, private citizens are learning about water quality issues
and helping protect our Nation's water resources by becoming volunteer
monitors. Volunteers are analyzing water samples for dissolved oxygen,
nutrients, pH, temperature, and a host of other water constituents; evaluat-
ing the health of stream habitats and aquatic biological communities;
inventorying stream-side conditions and land uses that may affect water
quality; cataloging and collecting beach debris, and restoring degraded
habitats.
State and local agencies may use volunteer data to screen for water quality
problems, establish trends in waters that would otherwise be unmonitored,
and make planning decisions. Volunteers benefit from learning more
about their local water resources, identifying what conditions or activities
might be contributing to pollution problems, and working with clubs,
environmental groups, and state or local governments to address problem
areas.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) supports the volunteer
monitoring movement in a number of ways. It sponsors national and
regional conferences to encourage information exchange between volun-
teer groups, government agencies, businesses, and educators; publishes
sampling methods manuals for volunteers; produces a nationwide direc-
tory of volunteer programs; and through its ten Regions, provides some
technical assistance (primarily on quality control and lab methods) and
Regional coordination. Grants to States that can be used to support volun-
teer monitoring in lakes and for nonpoint source pollution control are also
managed by the EPA Regions.
Every year, many new volunteer monitoring programs are formed in the
United States. Some programs have as many as several thousand volun-
teers. Most programs, however, are small and often affiliated with neigh-
borhood associations, schools or local environmental organizations. To-
day, there are literally too many to count.
The fast growth of the volunteer monitoring movement is clearly shown by
increases in the number of programs that receive technical and/or organi-
zational support from State water quality or natural resource agencies. In
1988, only 14 states supported such programs; by 1992,32 states had pro-
grams and six additional states were planning to develop programs. Over
24,000 volunteers in these state-supported programs monitor more than
985 streams and rivers, nearly 2800 ponds, lakes and wetlands, and four
major estuaries. In many cases, these waters would go unmonitored if
volunteers were not involved.
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Who Pays for
Volunteer Monitoring?
Volunteer monitoring programs are funded through a variety of
sources. In some cases, state water quality or natural resource agencies
may actually sponsor the volunteers and contribute staff, equipment,
and services such as data analysis. City and county governments do the
same. Some programs are supported by federal agencies such as the
EPA (primarily through pollution control grants to the States), the
National Park Service, and the U.S. Forest Service.
In addition, many volunteer programs receive private support through
foundations, universities and other research centers, or corporate spon-
sors. This support may include funding for a full or part time organizer,
equipment, training workshops, or data analysis. In many programs,
volunteers themselves also help pay for monitoring by purchasing their
own equipment and hosting training sessions.
How Do Volunteer
Monitoring
Programs
Improve Our
Environment?
The following examples demonstrate the important improvements
volunteer monitors have made to our environment.
Everett Streamkeepers Reclaim Pigeon Creek
Streamkeepers trained by the Adopt-A-Stream Foundation, of Wash-
ington, are literally reclaiming local water resources. For example,
volunteers
identified a former salmon stream, Pigeon Creek, in
Everett Harbor that was a proposed dredging site
raised salmon in an aquarium, with which they re-
stocked the creek
educated the community about protecting the creek's
salmon
persuaded the mayor and city council members to install a
storm water drainage system that protects the creek's re-emerg-
ing ecosystem
Adopt-A-Stream Foundation Streamkeepers Training
Program Significantly Improves Water Resources
The program began in 1981. Today there are 36 Streamkeepers,
teachers and community group leaders who have adopted streams in
Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and British Columbia.
Through the program, students and community groups maintain a
stream and its tributaries, watching for pollution, erosion, and activi-
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a partnership among State agencies, citizens and private
conservation organizations to develop water quality
programs and promote wise use of state streams and
rivers,
a facilitating role among youth groups and private educa-
tional organizations to include river conservation in
curriculum and youth activities.
Vermont Lay Monitoring Program
Over one hundred volunteers collect water quality data for
chlorophyll concentration (EPA fluorometric method), total
phosphorus, and Secchi disk transparency (a measure of water
turbidity) from smaller lakes and 30 Lake Champlain monitoring
stations. Volunteers also conduct user perception surveys. Their
data helped the State:
establish water quality standards for phosphorus in Lake
Champlain and Lake Memphremagog;
obtain a federal grants to conduct a lake studies;
include information on the lakes in its biennial water
quality inventory 305(b) Report to EPA.
Volunteer Lake Monitoring Program Benefits Illinois
Every year in Illinois, 270 volunteers donate 2,400 hours of their
time to monitor 150 lakes. Data on parameters such as water
transparency, nutrients and suspended solids are used in:
planning and implementing over 30 lake and watershed
management projects, such as a watershed cost-sharing
project between farmers and a lake association to imple-
ment safe and effective use of agricultural chemicals;
determining water quality trends and the effectiveness of
lake and watershed management projects;
preparing the State's water quality report to EPA.
Volunteers Support Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary
The Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary's more than 125 volunteers
assist with ten staff-conducted studies as well as numerous
public events. Besides conducting water quality monitoring,
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volunteers help with other efforts to protect and preserve habitats in the Patuxent River
watershed. For example, volunteer monitors:
participate in a comprehensive school program that brings several thousand
pre-school through college students to Jug Bay for a variety of programs (e.g.,
marsh studies, water quality studies,and forest ecology);
» assist ecologists and university interns conducting research;
teach educators about wetlands ecology, natural history and environmental
issues.
Trout Unlimited
With 70,000 members in 450
local chapters, Trout Unlimited
(TU) is a nonprofit cold water
fisheries conservation organiza-
tion. TU provides technical
assistance to many of its chap-
ters which participate annually
in dozens of on-going water
monitoring and river restora-
tion projects. TU's chapters
recently:
» constructed (with assis-
tance from Chevron
Corporation) a barbed-
wire fence along California's Trout Creek in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest to
prevent cows from damaging the riparian zone and fish habitat;
restored fish habitat on Spring Creek in Missouri's Mark Twain National Forest
by planting over 20,000 trees along a six mile segment of the creek, restoring the
creek's banks, and reclaiming its natural Ozark vegetation.
Center for Marine Conservation Program Contributes to New Laws
More than 160,000 Center for Marine Conservation volunteers in 32 states and 35 foreign
countries collect and catalog tons of trash from beaches. Their efforts along Texas
beaches produced data that contributed to:
Congressional ratification of an international agreement banning ocean-going
ships from dumping plastic debris;
Passage of the Marine Plastic Pollution Research and Control Act of 1987,
which implemented this agreement in U.S. waters.
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ties that might disrupt fish spawning. County employees help resi-
dents protect and rehabilitate local streams. Volunteers, working
together,
initiated more than 200 watershed restoration and enhance-
ment projects, and
opened over 30 miles of restricted salmon and steelhead
trout spawning and rearing habitat.
Projects included building fish ladders, clean-ups, fencing cattle out of
streams and becoming active in local land use decision making pro-
cesses.
Neighborhoods United: Protecting the Cold Stream
With only 13 members, Neighborhoods United is protecting the Cold
Stream in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Started only three years ago to save the urban stream, the
program:
organized city-wide cleanup days to collect several commercial truck loads of
garbage from the stream, dramatically reducing the stream's solid waste content;
identified a sewer overflow, which was subsquently repaired by the city after
Neighborhoods United presented city officials with a video tape of the problem;
involved children and adults in regular biological monitoring of the stream.
Missouri Stream Teams: Catalyst for Environmental
Partnerships
One of the principal objectives of Missouri Stream
Teams is to promote water quality monitoring of the
State's streams. However, the program, now 4 years
old, also addresses fish, forest and even wildlife
problems associated with Missouri's streams. The
efforts of about 12,000 volunteers were the catalyst for
establishing:
the Ozark Greenway Association, an indepen-
dent not-for-profit organization that buys land
to convert to greenways;
rural landowner groups that try to reclaim local
streams and rivers in order to rejuvenate the
economic life of rural communities.
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GREEN Project Empowers People to Improve Water Quality Around the
World
The Global Rivers Environmental Network (GREEN) is affiliated with the
School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan in
Ann Arbor. GREEN is an international network of active schools and communi-
ties in over 50 nations and every state in the United States. The Central Office is
also a clearinghouse of teaching and monitoring strategies to study water qual-
ity. GREEN provides materials and ideas for people interested in evaluating
and improving local water quality through hands-on monitoring and problem-
solving. Some examples of student actions arising from GREEN's water moni-
toring programs are listed below.
In Swaziland, students reduced the number of incidents of a tropical
disease caused by the infestation of parasitic worms by locating an alter-
native site on a river for washing clothes, and providing basins and water
pumps at the new site.
In Australia, students and teachers identified partially treated sewage
near public beaches and appeared on national television to advise the
public of the danger.
In Detroit, Michigan, students found that a municipal sewage treatment
station was operating improperly and emptying raw sewage into the
Rouge River. The city immediately repaired the station's equipment.
For More Information
The U.S. EPA has a number of resources available for people interested in learn-
ing more about volunteer monitoring and how they can participate. For infor-
mation, contact:
Alice Mayio
Volunteer Monitoring Coordinator
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
4503
401 M Street, SW
Washington, DC 20460
(202) 260-7018
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