NEWS FROM THE DELAWARE DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROL
March 31, 2008
Vol. 38, No. 122
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For more information contact Jennifer Volk, Watershed Assessment Section, Division of Water Resources, 302-739-9939, Megan Ward, Nanticoke Watershed Alliance, 410-873-3045 or Melanie Rapp, Public Affairs, 302-739-9902.
Nanticoke Creekwatchers Kick-off Event Highlights Citizen Monitoring Program
More than thirty-five environmental enthusiasts committed to stewardship of the Nanticoke watershed attended the Creekwatchers citizen monitoring kick-off event on March 28 in Vienna, Maryland. The event, organized by the Nanticoke Watershed Alliance, was held to train citizens in water quality monitoring activities of the Nanticoke River and its tributaries in Delaware and Maryland.
“We were thrilled to have so many people attend this year’s kick-off event,” said Megan Ward, Creekwatchers program coordinator with the Nanticoke Watershed Alliance. “Our citizen volunteers are very passionate about protecting the health and beauty of the Nanticoke watershed and are willing to devote their time and skills to help make a difference.”
The Nanticoke Watershed Alliance’s Creekwatchers Citizen Monitoring Program began in July 2007 as a multi-year project to monitor the health of the Nanticoke River and its tributaries. During the first year, more than thirty volunteers monitored twenty-five sites testing several important water quality variables. Funding for the project is made possible by grants from the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control’s Division of Water Resources and the Chesapeake Bay Trust.
Several community organizations, including Dorchester Citizens for Planned Growth, Galestown Mill Pond Association and Nanticoke Watershed Preservation Group, have joined this year’s monitoring effort. The Creekwatchers program has been expanded to 40 sites, including many new locations in headwater areas or previously underrepresented regions within the watershed. Volunteers’ efforts will supply nine months of water quality data for 2008, helping the Nanticoke Watershed Alliance and state agencies to gauge the changing health of the Nanticoke River.
“With this citizen monitoring program, we are able to do more than what other water monitoring programs are typically able to do by sampling more locations on a more frequent basis,” said Jennifer Volk, environmental scientist with DNREC’s Watershed Assessment Section. “With the training provided, volunteers are transformed into a team of citizen scientists who are able to measure onsite - water clarity, dissolved oxygen, salinity, pH and temperature - using field instruments. They also collect water samples for laboratory analysis of nutrients, chlorophyll and bacteria.”
"One of the biggest environmental problems facing the Nanticoke River and many other streams, lakes, rivers and estuaries throughout the United States is that the activities of modern society have increased loads of nutrients and organic material into these waters that are far beyond natural levels,” said Robin Tyler, aquatic ecologist with the Division of Water Resources. “These increased loads lead to undesirable environmental conditions such as low dissolved oxygen, reduced clarity of the water and excessive growth of aquatic plants. Each of these undesirable conditions can act alone or together to damage habitat used by animals such as crabs, fish, and waterfowl. The citizen monitoring data will help Delaware and Maryland better understand the extent of these conditions in the Nanticoke Watershed.”
Creekwatcher data will be submitted to state agencies, the EPA and other groups working to clean up the Chesapeake Bay, its rivers and tributaries. The results of the program will be included in the annual “State of the Nanticoke Watershed” report. The report, which includes the 2007 water quality data, is expected to be released in May 2008, available to the public and posted on the Nanticoke Watershed Alliance’s website, www.nanticokeriver.org
The Nanticoke Creekwatchers Water Monitoring Program includes a number of partners – Envirocorp Labs in Harrington, Del. donates all testing services and John Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md. provides data management and analytical services. Technical training and support is provided by the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, Maryland Department of Natural Resources, the National Park Service, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Salisbury University and the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science at Horn Point.
The Nanticoke Watershed Alliance is a consortium of almost forty organizations that include government agencies, environmental groups, land trusts, academia, restoration groups, industry, small business, realtors, forest and fishing industries, and citizen groups To learn more about the alliance and programs underway to conserve the natural, cultural and recreational resources of the Nanticoke River watershed, visit www.nanticokeriver.org or contact Megan Ward at 410-873-3045 or meganward@nanticokeriver.org
DNREC’s Division of Water Resources Watershed Section develops water quality monitoring strategies, conducts watershed evaluations, performs soil evaluations, provides technical support to the department, and integrates wetland and watershed management. For more information contact Jennifer Volk at 302-739-9939, Jennifer.Volk@state.de.us or visit www.dnrec.delaware.gov and click on “Division of Water Resources.”
