Small Grant: $5,000
From May through August, Acterra led volunteers in visiting nine sites on Stevens and Permanente Creeks to collect data on water chemistry – Temperature, specific conductance, dissolved oxygen, pH and turbidity. Field protocol was based on that of the Surface Water Ambient Monitoring Program (SWAMP). Three of the sites coincide with previous SWAMP sites to provide a continuity of data over time. The other six sites were chosen on the basis of their accessibility and their potential to reflect water quality changes due to urban runoff. Click on the map below for more information about the sites.
Community members from young families to senior citizens participated in the monitoring. Along the way volunteers discovered that the creek is a beautiful place to be, often taking the opportunity to turn over a few rocks to look at creek bugs, do some bird-watching, and appreciate the wildflowers.
In addition to water quality monitoring, Acterra organized “Bug Clubs” twice a month to perform and teach how to perform biomonitoring of the organisms that can live at a site. Acterra volunteers, with the help of a USGS stream ecologist and entomologist, learned how to identify benthic macroinvertebrates.
The results from the water chemistry analyses and more details about Acterra’s activities are compiled into the final report downloadable here.
Photos by Acterra