As a thank you for all of the early mornings of taking water samples, we were delighted to host an appreciation party for our dedicated CWMN volunteers, and about twenty hardy souls braved a ferocious rainstorm to attend.
Folks arrived around 6pm to enjoy some conversation and pizza, and then to listen to Environmental Engineer, Sarah Bounty, present the results of water monitoring over the 2014 and 2015 sampling seasons. (NepRWA has been monitoring the health of the Neponset River and its tributaries for more than twenty years.)
Parameters for determining health of water bodies, including bacteria (E. coli), nutrients, temperature, pH, and visual observations, are monitored at 41 different locations around the watershed, with samples taken once per month from May to October. Dedicated volunteers take samples between 6 and 8am on sampling mornings, and the results are posted on our website.
Volunteers were intrigued, surprised, and angered by the obvious uptick in bacteria in local waterways caused by stormwater runoff, and many expressed interest in doing more to help combat the pollution.
If you would like to learn more about becoming a CWMN volunteer, click here. To see the slides from the presentation of results, click here.
February 2016
Sarah Bounty, Environmental Engineer
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