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For those who own houses on lakes, or who spend any amount of time on them, being able to boat and swim in clean water is of paramount importance. Nothing will ruin your enjoyment and reduce the value of  your property faster than  the encroachment of invasive aquatic plants.  They clog motors, they ruin beaches, and they smell when rotting in massive quantities.

If your lake is still free from these plants then you should seriously consider doing all you can do keep it that way, and the best way to do so is to monitor your lake for the plants. If you expect someone else to do it for you, expect to be disappointed; it is highly likely that no one cares about your lake more than you do.

The Cooperative Lakes Monitoring Program offers the Exotic Plant Watch program at the cost of only $25 a year. If you enroll, you will be trained to find and identify four common invasive aquatic plants: European Milfoil, hydrilla, curly-leaf pondweed, and starry stonewort. It will then be up to you and your neighbors to monitor your lake, though the program staff will give advice and can confirm your plant identifications.

If you don’t find any plants, that’s great! But if you do, the best way to stop their spread is to act quickly, before the plants become widespread.  It is relatively simple to treat and remove a small amount of invasive plants; it is extremely expensive to control them once they have spread throughout the lake and virtually impossible to eradicate them.

Hydrilla is not yet found in Michigan, but is knocking on our front door. It covers a lake with a thick green blanket like we see in this picture from Florida.
Photo by Ann Murray, University of Florida/IFAS Center for Aquatic and Invasive Plants. Used with permission.

Bring on the “brrr!”

On January 26, 110 intrepid volunteers faced the harsh winter elements and spread across the Huron River watershed in search of stoneflies, which are only found in clean and healthy streams.  Everyone made it back safe, which is the number one priority, and it seemed that a good time was had by all.

In 2012 the Stonefly Search volunteers had to deal with melting snow and flood conditions, but this year we had a deep freeze in the week preceeding the Search, and most of the teams had to break their way through the ice in order to sample the stream macroinvertebrates. Despite this challenging problem, stoneflies were found in great abundance at many locations.  The results are in, and are given in this pdf report.

Highlights:

1.  The status quo is being maintained for most of the sampling sites.  Sites that have had stoneflies in the past are still able to support them, and sites that were not healthy enough to hold stoneflies still do not have them.  That being said, we did see a few changes this year which are detailed below.

2. Four sites had the best stonefly samples that had ever been seen at those locations: Chilson Creek at Chilson Road, Fleming Creek at Galpin Road, the Huron River at Flat Rock, and Woodruff Creek at Buno Road.  At each of these sites, the stoneflies normally found at the location were there, but also new stonefly families were found that had never been seen there before! A greater diversity of stoneflies indicates greater stream health.  These are promising results and hopefully it will continue into longer term trends.

3. The team searching for stoneflies in Woods Creek in Belleville came back disappointed.  Wood’s Creek at the Lower Huron Metropark has been sampled 12 times since 1997, and this is the first time that stoneflies could not be found. The problem likely comes from the thick ice and difficult conditions rather than pollution or disturbed stream habitat, but we will keep an eye on Wood’s Creek next year.

4. Traver Creek is a stream in north Ann Arbor that has typical urban stream problems- in particular, flashy flows and runoff, oil, and sediment from roads.  In the past couple of years, part of the train track berm washed out and released a large plume of sediment to Traver Creek.  However, we were pleased that both of the sites sampled on Traver Creek this year turned up stoneflies.  The sites were both upstream and downstream of the wash-out.

Next on the horizon!

Interested in doing more with our macroinvertebrate searches?  Think about becoming a trained leader or collector by coming to the next training on March 24.  This is an extremely important job because every team needs both a trained leader and collector, and we often do not have enough to meet the demand.  Sign up for the training!

On October 6, one-hundred twenty brave and intrepid volunteers spread across the Huron River watershed to collect benthic macroinvertebrates: the  crustaceans, insects, and mollusks that live in our creeks and rivers.  Typically, only the healthiest streams will have abundant and diverse populations.  Polluted streams and other streams that are heavily impacted by human activities will hold fewer of these creatures, and may only contain the most pollution tolerant types.  By watching the long-term trends of these populations, HRWC can tell where pollution may be becoming a problem and that helps direct HRWC’s time and effort.

See the full set of results from this past River Roundup event.

Dave Wilson samples Woods Creek midst a flurry of beautiful fall colors.

Overall watershed assessment

In order to get an overall sense of the health of the Huron River Watershed, HRWC samples macroinvertebrates from sixty-six 300 foot sections of the creeks and rivers.  The sampling sites have been selected to provide equal geographic representation from the various areas throughout the watershed.

In regards to their overall quality:

• 2 sites are excellent (The best, most pristine areas)
• 17 sites are good (Their macroinvertebrate populations are higher than we would expect based on the stream size, water temperature, and stream substrate).
• 24 sites are fair (Their macroinvertebrate populations are slightly lower than we would expect based on the stream size, water temperature, and stream substrate)
• 10 sites are poor (Pollution and other human impacts have severely damaged the macroinvertebrate populations at these sites)
• 10 sites are new to the program and cannot be judged until more data is collected.

In regards to how the macroinvertebrate populations are changing at these sites:

• 28 sites have remained largely unchanged since monitoring began on them
• 15 sites have improved
• 13 sites have declined
• 10 sites are new to the program and cannot be judged until more data is collected.

Trend analysis shows tremendous variation by County

Three counties contain most of the Adopt-a-Stream sampling sites: Livingston, Oakland, and Washtenaw. When HRWC analyzed overall trends by county, a clear distinction appeared. The upstream counties, Oakland and Livingston, both showed roughly one third of sites declining, and no more than one tenth of sites improving. On the other hand, in Washtenaw County hardly any sites were declining and nearly half the sites were improving!

With results such as this, it is easy to start pointing fingers or consider the amount of money spent by these counties in improving water quality.  However, streams are complex systems, with many stressors, and this  analysis does not address the reasons for the differences we are seeing between the counties.

The two additional watershed counties, Wayne and Monroe, had too few study sites to detect overall trends.

Other noteworthy results

Drought causes influx of “marsh-loving” species into the Huron.

• This year we saw a marked increase in marsh flies, marsh beetles, mosquitoes, and water treaders in the River Roundup samples. These critters prefer a habitat of slow-moving or stagnant water. This year’s drought has caused the flow in the Huron and it’s tributaries to slacken, and smaller regional pools, marshes, and wetlands to dry up. Whether these critters are moving in from dried-out-homes or flourishing in a sluggish creeks (or most likely both), the recent changes in weather patterns are certainly affecting the types of insects found in the Huron River.  (For comparison, last autumn’s heavy rains caused a corresponding drop in the prevalence of these species).

Good News at Mallet’s Creek: Restoration efforts look to be paying off!

• Mallets Creek is one of the Huron’s most disturbed streams, earning an overall rating of poor. The creek is “flashy,” flooding dramatically with rainfall, which results in erosion and an influx of pollutants.  To address this problem, the City of Ann Arbor, the Washtenaw County Office of Water Resources Commissioner, and the Michigan Department of Environment Quality (DEQ) are collaborating on restoration efforts in the area. Ongoing projects include the creation of a 15 million gallon wet meadow, stream bank stabilization, and seeding of native vegetation. These efforts, along with homeowner-installed rain gardens and rain barrels, help decrease stormwater flashes.  Source: annarbor.com
• This fall’s sampling of Mallet’s revealed encouraging improvement; An unusual increase in insect families were found.  For instance, volunteers collected 11 insect families compared to the recent average of 7.2. Species not seen at this site since 1996 were discovered, including the water boatman, finger-net caddisfly, and marsh beetle. While these improvements are not yet statistically significant, they are a great sign that local restoration projects are making a difference for our waterways.

Special note:  Volunteer Genevieve Leet contributed extensively to this data analysis and this blog. Thanks for your help, Genevieve!

Norton Creekshed is in southwest Oakland County and contains the City of Wixom and the Village of Wolverine Lake.

A watershed is an area of land that drains to a particular point; for example, everything in the Huron River Watershed eventually slopes downhill to the mouth of the Huron River on Lake Erie.  A “creekshed” is simply a small version of a watershed that is defined by the land draining a particular creek.  The Huron River Watershed is full of creeksheds: Arms, Honey, Davis, Mill, Fleming, Horseshoe, Norton, Chilson, Portage, and Hay are all examples.

Over the last year, HRWC has been thinking on the creekshed scale by looking specifically at our creeks and the land that affects them.  We have been synthesizing all of our knowledge on these creeksheds and putting them into easily digestible and colorful 4 page reports.  The front page of the reports contains basic information such as the size of creekshed and creek, a map of the creekshed, and either history or a point of interest about the creekshed.  The middle two pages summarize all of our monitoring data for the creekshed and give a simple three level rating (poor, fair, or excellent).  The final page highlights some of the environmental successes in the creekshed and discusses some of the major environmental challenges still facing the creekshed and its residents.

This is a great process not only for the residents of the Huron River Watershed, who get to see the results, but it is a great exercise for the HRWC staff. It provides us with the opportunity to think wholistically about a creekshed and come to a better understanding of it by sharing what we know with each other, and along the way discovering new things that none of us knew before.

Four creeksheds have reports currently available:

Fleming Creekshed Report

Davis Creekshed Report

Honey (Washtenaw) Creekshed Report

Norton Creekshed Report

More will be available in the future at http://hrwc.org/the-watershed/features/huron-river-creeks/

Lend us a hand!

We couldn’t have written these reports without our volunteers. Volunteers contribute a lot of time and effort to help HRWC collect monitoring data.  This data is used to help us understand the quality of the Huron River Watershed and indicate where extra planning, education, or restoration work is needed.

Our next event is the River Roundup on October 6.  Register here by October 3.  See you there!

We glimpse the future under a changed climate

Weeks of air temperatures above 90 degrees F have lots of people talking about extreme weather and the role of climate change. Such extreme heat yields myriad human and environmental effects.  A previously unexplored effect is the stress that court-established water levels on lakes will have on the Huron River system under drought conditions that are projected by climate scientists to occur with greater frequency over the next 30-50 years.

This structure increases or decreases the rate at which water leaves a lake.

State laws at odds

Michigan law prohibits reduced river flows under Section 324.301 of the 1994 Natural Resource and Environmental Protection Act. The section states that diminishing an inland lake or stream is prohibited without a permit.  ”Diminish” means to reduce flows to a creek, as happens when gates of a lake level control structure are closed.

However, read a bit further and you’ll see that Michigan law allows for reduced river flow under Section 324.307.  Under this law, lake residents are allowed to obtain a regulated lake level by building a lake-level control structure that maintains a lake’s water level while reducing flow to downstream lakes and rivers.  Lake residents are motivated  to pursue lake levels to make it easier to boat, recreate in the lake, and build docks that they can reliably use despite changes in weather conditions. Many lakes in the watershed, including in-line lakes that are impoundments of the Huron River, have court-ordered lake levels.

Lake residents are able to obtain these designations through a process with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ).  Once a lake level is set by a judge, then the county government (often the Drain or Water Resources Commissioner) is responsible for altering the outflow of the water from these lakes via structures so that the the lake is able to maintain a constant depth. Dams are one type of structure used to control flows. Other structures like the one pictured above also are present in the watershed.

Typically, though not always, the DEQ gives section 307 precedence over section 301, meaning that permitted lake-control structures are allowed to diminish the downstream lake or stream in order to maintain their lake levels.

Keeping a lake level in drought conditions

Maintaining a court-ordered lake level may go unnoticed during periods of normal or wet weather. But this manipulation of a natural system has the potential to stress the ecology of the lake during drought periods. Since the county is obligated to maintain a certain water level it is possible that they would need to “hoard” incoming water and only allow reduced flow —  or even no flow — downstream.  The graphics below show a simple input and output system to illustrate the issue.

Under normal conditions, the amount of water entering a level-controlled lake will approximately equal the amount of water leaving the lake.

Under typical flow conditions, the amount of water entering a lake will equal the amount of water leaving the lake, plus any additions from rain, and minus any water lost through evaporation.  Under drought conditions, the amount of water entering the lake is already reduced from low stream flows, no additional input is provided from rain, and the amount of evaporation can be significantly high.  As a result, it is possible that the county would have to close the gates altogether to maintain the lake’s court-ordered water level, and no water or very reduced flows will reach downstream to keep the fish alive or provide water to the next lake or river section downstream.

The drought situation-- in order to maintain the lake level, water is held back in the impoundment.

How can the situation be improved?

For the waterfront resident

Given the current hot and dry conditions in southeastern Michigan, waterfront residents likely are seeing reduced water flow especially if living downstream of a lake with a court-mandated lake level. Understandably, this imbalance of “water power” may feel unfair and residents could be looking for a fast and easy solution to secure more water for their section of the river or lake. Such a solution doesn’t exist. Aggrieved residents have sought justice through our legal system. Typically, these cases are eventually dropped since droughts end and rain, and consequently higher water flow, mute the problem.

Yet, droughts are predicted to become more common and more severe over the next several decades, and we may see a resurgence of court cases.

A measure of relief may be found in the operation of the structures. Some lakes have an ungated pipe or dam bypass that drains downstream, so that some amount of water is always flowing downstream, even when the dam’s gates are completely closed. However, such a bypass is not a requirement in obtaining the establishing a legal lake level.  Building this in a requirement would be an important and wonderful safeguard to ensure that some level of water is always going downstream.

And for the river

The DEQ has the responsibility to examine the problem with stream flow as it relates to drought and mandated lake levels. In particular, giving the priority of maintaining lake levels over allowing for run-of-the-river flows is dangerous for the survival of downstream ecosystems when facing drought situations.

After speaking with DEQ staff, I am happy to report that the issue is on their radar and under consideration.  HRWC will keep an eye on this complex issue at the state level, and work with local partners to find workable solutions to this increasingly urgent problem.

The future of fish

The future of cold-water fish, like these rainbow trout, is quite grim.

This past week I had the opportunity to attend a two-day workshop exploring the connections between streams, climate change, and fish populations.  The centerpiece of this workshop was a climate change-fish vulnerability model developed by a partnership between the US Geological Survey (USGS), Michigan State University, and state agencies in Michigan, New York, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.  This model makes predictions of how likely stream fish populations are to change under a range of climate change scenarios.  The information can be used by water resource managers trying to understanding which fish and which streams are most at risk from climate change.

Nuts and bolts of the fish vulnerability model

Global circulation models (GCMs) are used by climate scientists to make predictions about how the Earth’s climate is going to change in the future.  There are a wide variety of GCMs, all based on differing assumptions, and as a result they produce different results in terms of the predicted rates of climate change.  Interestingly, all of the models do share some commonalities:

• The Earth is warming
• Winter is going to warm more than the summer
• Winters will be wetter
• The northern US will warm more than the south
• Inland areas will warm more than along coastlines
• Extreme events will be more common

The fish vulnerability model produced by the USGS and its partners uses ten of these differing GCMs and combines their climate predictions with predictions of fish presence and absence.  An example is the best way to show how this works. Let’s say a particular stream holds brook trout currently.  Due to temperature increases and changes in water flow by 2050, this stream is predicted to have lost the fish  under GCMs #1-7.  However, under GCMs #8-10, the fish is still expected to remain in the creek.  Therefore, 7 out of the 10 climate change scenarios predict that the fish will be eliminated from this creek by the year 2050.  The fish’s vulnerability to climate-change is said to be 70% for this particular stream.

The USGS and its partners ran this model across the Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota for 14 species of fish (i.e. brook trout, brown trout, mottled sculpin, northern pike, smallmouth bass, common carp, etc).  For each fish and on every stream in these states, they have produced a predicted vulnerability for that species- the percentage chance that the fish will disappear in the future.

Management implications

If the model predicts a fish to be missing from a stream under all 10 of the GCMs, this means that even under lenient climate change scenarios, this fish will disappear and managing this stream for the preservation of the fish is most likely to be a lost cause.  The predicted vulnerability of this fish in this stream is 100%.

If the model predicts a fish to be present in a stream under all 10 GCMs, this indicates that this fish is very resilient against climate change, or that the stream is not expected to change much, even under the most severe climate change scenarios.  Managers can leave these streams alone; the predicted vulnerability of this fish in this stream is 0%.

However, if the model predicts that under some GCMs the fish will leave, and under other GCMs that the fish will stay, then water resource managers have something to work with.  This model result means that the stream may be borderline for the fish in the future, and managers have a chance to keep the fish there if they can work towards making the stream more “climate change resilient”. Management activities should center on promoting rainfall infiltration and groundwater recharge.  Activities like building rain gardens, maintaining and expanding our natural areas, and reducing the amount of impervious surface will provide greater opportunity for rain to percolate into the ground rather than running overland to the stream.

Groundwater is the key to climate change resiliency because in the summer when fish populations are most stressed due to high water temperatures and low rainfall, groundwater inputs maintain flow and cooler temperatures. Groundwater temperature is usually the same as the average annual air temperature because of the length of time the water spends underground.  Therefore in the summer, groundwater is relatively cold as compared to surface water. Also, groundwater is released consistently to the stream, unlike sporadic rainfall, thus giving constant flow even under drought conditions.

Stay Tuned…

The USGS  is in the process of developing  a web-based map to display their model results so that the information can be readily used by water resource managers.  This web-based map and the model results are not ready for public consumption, but I will post a link from this blog when it is.

Huron River at White Lake Road!!!

The mighty Huron River... is pretty small up in Oakland County! (photo credit: Matt Lowney)

Seriously? Again?

For the 18th year in a row, the Huron River at White Lake Road had far-and-away the healthiest “bug” population as determined by HRWC’s semi-annual macroinvertebrate collection event. This location is in Indian Springs Metropark in Oakland County and is very near to the uppermost headwaters of the river. HRWC has highlighted this section of the river many times, but the site does deserve the attention. HRWC volunteers have found rare insects here numerous times and consistently find many insect families that only live in the most pristine of waters.

Let’s take a step back…

On April 21, one-hundred forty adventurous volunteers spread across the Huron River watershed to collect benthic macroinvertebrates: the  crustaceans, insects, and mollusks that live in our creeks and rivers.  Typically, only the healthiest streams will have abundant and diverse populations.  Polluted streams and other streams that are heavily impacted by human activities will hold fewer of these creatures, and may only contain the most pollution tolerant types.  By watching the long-term trends of these populations, HRWC can tell where pollution may be becoming a problem and that helps direct HRWC’s time and effort.

See the full set of results from this past River Roundup event.

Volunteers travel to forest and wetlands.... (Horseshoe Creek @ Merril Road, photo credit: John Lloyd)

Overall watershed assessment

In order to get an overall sense of the health of the Huron River Watershed, HRWC samples macroinvertebrates from sixty-four 300 foot sections of the creeks and rivers.  The sampling sites have been selected to provide equal geographic representation from the various areas throughout the watershed.

In regards to how the macroinvertebrate populations are changing at these sites:

• 34 sites have remained largely unchanged since monitoring began on them
• 9 sites have improved
• 11 sites have declined
• 10 sites are new to the program and cannot be judged until more data is collected.

In regards to their overall quality:

• 3 sites are excellent (The best, most pristine areas)
• 15 sites are good (Their macroinvertebrate populations are higher than we would expect based on the stream size, water temperature, and stream substrate).
• 24 sites are fair (Their macroinvertebrate populations are slightly lower than we would expect based on the stream size, water temperature, and stream substrate)
• 10 sites are poor (Pollution and other human impacts have severely damaged the macroinvertebrate populations at these sites)
• 10 sites are new to the program and cannot be judged until more data is collected.

Other noteworthy results:

1)  South Ore Creek (Livingston County, flowing through and near Brighton) has never had great macroinvertebrate populations since HRWC began sampling here. This is a populated area of the Huron River watershed and is negatively affected by  a variety of human impacts, including dams and subdivisions. Our April results show that things may be getting worse:  the insect counts in 2 of the 3 sample sites on South Ore Creek are declining significantly, and the third site was already one of the worst places we monitor in Livingston County.

2) Boyden Creek (Washtenaw County, flowing through and around the Loch Alpine neighborhood) is showing the opposite trend. This is also a populated area of the Huron River watershed, and is also impacted by dams and subdivisions, but the data show that the macroinvertebrate populations have been getting significantly better over time. The similarities between Boyden Creek and South Ore Creek are interesting given that their macroinvertebrate populations are changing in opposite directions. This contrast is a bit confounding  and is something to study further.

3) Congratulations to all of our Wood Creek Friends!   Woods Creek at the Lower Huron River Metropark (Wayne County, near Belleville) had its best fall sample ever in 2011, and in this 2012 sample season it had its best spring sample ever. This sample was composed of fifteen insect families, including two families of stoneflies. The data now show significant improvement to the insect populations at this site.

.... and volunteers travel to village parks and urbanized rivers. (Huroc Park in Flat Rock, photo credit: Eric Bassey)

What next?

Are you interested in getting into the water this summer?We want you to join a team that will measure and map a stream site this summer! Learn to “read a river” by characterizing the bed, the banks and other indicators of stream health. Training for this program will be on August 5! See our volunteer page for more information!

Michigan’s Cooperative Lakes Monitoring Program enters its 39th field season!

One of my jobs at the Huron River Watershed Council is to serve as a manager for the state of Michigan’s volunteer lake monitoring program, the Cooperative Lakes Monitoring Program (CLMP).   The CLMP has been around since 1974… that is an impressive length of time!

The current state of Michigan inland lakes... Click for a bigger picture!

Since that first year, the thousands of volunteers across Michigan have:

• Taken 92,185 secchi disk measurements
• Grabbed 4,274 water samples for phosphorus analysis
• Filtered 5,956 water samples for chlorophyll
• Made 2,023 observations of the dates that ice melted off their lakes
• Measured dissolved oxygen and temperature 52,290 times and created 3,486 dissolved oxygen and temperature lake profiles
• Searched 17 lakes for exotic plants and mapped out full plant communities on 12 lakes.

All of this delicious data is entered by our volunteers and staff into a publicly accessible and searchable database!

In total, 827 inland lake basins have been monitored through one test or another through the CLMP.  Michigan lake volunteers have contributed about 57,400 hours of work, not counting the time spent driving samples to State offices and going to trainings.  Assuming field technicians across this time period would make an average of $9/hour, that means these volunteers have donated well over a half a million dollars in labor.

If you live on a lake, HRWC wants you to care for it and do what you can to keep it healthy.  The first step is to figure out what is going on beneath the surface, and the CLMP can help you do this.  It is not too late to sign up for the entry parameters: secchi disk and summer phosphorus.  Register now for the 2012 field season!

Pranav Yajnik shows off his stoneflies while standing on the bank of a very swollen Huron River. (credit: Max Bromley)

150 volunteers spread thoughout the Huron River watershed in search of stoneflies.

This past weekend, HRWC volunteers braved the high water from unseasonable snowmelt and rain in order to monitor the populations of the aquatic winter stonefly.

Stoneflies are only found in streams and rivers that are free from pollution, so HRWC tracks these critters to understand how our streams are changing over time.

The data is now in and available here.  There are a few interesting stories that can be told from this year’s results.

1.  This program is held in January because two stonefly families crawl out of rivers and streams and become terrestrial adults by late winter and early spring, and at that point they would be difficult to find. However, this year our team at Mill Creek: Shield Road found a large number of stoneflies that had already emerged and were warming themselves in the sun.  This is a very early emergence and is connected to the warm temperatures that we are experiencing this winter.

2.  Congratulations to the Wood’s Creek Friends!  This is the first year (after sampling for 4 years) that a stonefly was found at the Renton Road site.

3. Mann Creek (east of Brighton) continues to be the best creek in the watershed for stoneflies.  This is now the sixth year in a row where volunteers have found four stonefly families.  In way of comparison, most of our healthy creeks only have one or two stonefly families.

Some of our friends from Alpha Phi Omega!

4.  The team that went to Pettibone Creek at Livingston Road thought that they had struck out, but upon examining their sample closely we realized that they had found a Nemourid broadback- also known as a little brown stonefly to the anglers out there.  This is the first Stonefly Search in which a team found a stonefly at this site.  While not rare statewide, Nemourid broadbacks are rare for the Huron River Watershed.  During the Winter Stonefly Search, they are only found at one other site that we monitor.  Both Pettibone Creek and this other site (Narrow Gauge Creek) have very high amounts of groundwater inputs. It is unclear if that is a spurious correlation or a legitimate reason for why the insect is found at these locations.

5.  Monitoring results on the main branch of Davis Creek have indicated that the insect populations in this creek are declining.  We are not finding the diversity or abundance of stoneflies that were found 10 years ago at both Pontiac Trail and Doane Road. The fall and spring monitoring of the full insect community also show a similar pattern. The results seem quite clear:  the water quality of Davis Creek is declining slowly but consistently.  HRWC is planning on exploring Davis Creek more this coming summer.  If interested in joining a team to walk portions of Davis Creek, please contact Paul Steen (psteen@hrwc.org).

To all our volunteers: Thank you again!  You made this valuable event possible.

Hats of all colors participated! (credit: John Lloyd)

Across the Huron River Watershed, there are many teachers and educators who bring their students to nearby creeks and rivers for hands-on experiential learning. These students are collecting a wealth of information on the health of our water resources.  HRWC thinks it would it be great to put that data to use.

We have developed a database in which teachers can enter their students’ information on habitat, water chemistry, and macroinvertebrates. This database can serve as long term storage to compare results between years, or to see what other teachers and students have found in different areas of the watershed. Once we have enough data and locations, teachers can have a ready made set of data to hand to their students for a variety of analyses. And of course, the Watershed Council is always interested in learning more about the health of our rivers and creeks, whether this information comes from students, volunteers, or professionals.

This effort is just being launched, so there isn’t much in the database yet, but we hope that every hands-on teacher out there will contribute and make this is a great resource for each other as well as the Watershed Council.

Go here to both share and use this water quality information.