Organization Teaches Volunteers How to Monitor the Rivanna River and Tributaries
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ALBEMARLE COUNTY, Va (WVIR) -
Volunteers are learning how to monitor the health of central Virginia’s waterways.
They’ll spend the next several months tracking the water quality, and the different kinds of bugs in the region’s streams.
StreamWatch trains people to be citizen scientists. Saturday, the organization held a workshop to show a group of volunteers how to keep the Rivanna River and its tributaries clean.
The day started with an introductory training class to teach them the basics of a healthy stream. “These volunteers are learning how to go out and take a sample with us for the next couple months,” says Anne Dunckel, StreamWatch.
From September to November volunteers from all over central Virginia will collect water quality samples in the Rivanna River Water Shed. Saturday’s training session allowed them to get started in the program.
“It’s definitely something that I’m passionate about and helping the local community is also a plus,” says Adrianna Gorsky, volunteer.
The volunteers spent a few hours with their head in the books learning how to identify types of bugs in the creek. “The bugs that live in the creeks are indicators of stream health so they’re the ones that are living there and letting us know if a lot of pollution has come down the pipe or not,” says Dunckel.
To find these bugs, StreamWatch volunteers use a net to wrestle up the sediment in the water. “I’ve learned to identify the larva of a number of insects that inhabit the waters here and what they look like as adults when they leave the water and go on the land,” says Esther Volkan, volunteer.
The workshop requires both book and hands-on training to learn how to keep central Virginia’s waterways healthy.
StreamWatch conducts two training sessions every year before the start of a sampling season. Saturday’s was the first for the fall. The next training is at the Fluvanna County Public Library on September 19.