On October 20, the Watershed Association hosted a pizza party at our office to thank our faithful Citizen Water Monitoring Network (CWMN) volunteers for their help this sampling season. The program would not be nearly as successful without the contributions of these dedicated individuals, and we are very appreciative of their time. Sampling wraps up for 2014 with our last event of the year, on October 30th.
What do CWMN volunteers do?
Volunteers with the CWMN program take water samples six times a year; once a month from May to October. Samples are taken between 6 and 7:30 am to make sure they are transported to the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) laboratory at Deer Island in time to be analyzed for bacteria. Water samples are also analyzed for nutrients, temperature, dissolved oxygen, and pH of water samples. This sampling program provides a comprehensive data set for 41 sites throughout the watershed. Data is available for the past 12 years on our website here.
If you are interested in helping out with the CWMN program, you can learn more about different volunteer opportunities here. Sampling stops for the winter, but will start again next spring.
Please contact Environmental Engineer Sarah Bounty (bounty@neponset.org) for more information. If you like getting outdoors early in the morning, we could use your help!
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