Friends of Stafford CreeksNonprofit organization of volunteer citizen scientists monitoring water quality, advocating sustainable land use policies and watershed protection, and promoting education and stewardship of aquatic and wildlife resources in Stafford County Virginia's Potomac River tributaries.
Water Quality Monitoring Information |
Home About Us Publications Maps Newsroom Archive Resource Issues Donate
Sixteen million people live, work, and play in the Chesapeake Bay’s watershed. Everyone in the watershed lives just a few minutes from one or more of the 100,000 streams and rivers draining into the Bay. Thus, each individual affects the Bay whether by adding waste, consuming resources, or changing the characteristics of the land, air and water that surrounds it. As one of the country’s most productive estuaries, the Bay has provided the United States with an abundance of resources, but its productivity has been affected by human uses of the Bay, its tributary rivers, and the way we live on and use the land in the entire watershed.
In recent years, the rate of population growth in the Chesapeake Bay watershed has accelerated to the point where scientists and land planners have concern that the watershed may no longer be able to sustain all of the living resources that make up the Bay’s ecosystem, including humans. Between 1970 and 1997, the region’s population grew 28%. By 2020, it’s expected that nearly 18 million people will live in the region. In order to accommodate these new residents, more homes will be built. And, if the current development pattern holds, many of these new houses will be located farther away from existing infrastructure, such as schools, businesses and wastewater treatment facilities. This pattern of sprawl development has taken hold all over the Bay region and now ranks among the top threats to the Bay’s recovery.
It is our responsibility to protect this great waterway, so that it can continue to sustain healthy aquatic life forms that have been so important in the development of the ecosystem in this region. Becoming a volunteer water quality monitor is one way to contribute to understanding the ecosystem and help in its protection and restoration.
Stafford Creeks program began in 2003 when one volunteer noticed how very dirty the water in a creek at her home had become. Citizen scientists now monitor fourteen sites in Stafford’s Potomac River tributaries. The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality in its biannual report uses data that Stafford Creeks collects.
Each monitor, after he or she is trained, is assigned at least one monitoring site on a stream or creek near his or her home. Some monitors actually monitor in their backyards; that is the best!
The monitor visits their assigned site one time a month and performs these nine measurements/tests:
Air temperature
Water temperature
Water pH
Dissolved oxygen in water
Water clarity using a secchi disk or a turbidity tube
Salinity, if the site is tidal
All tests are done at the site by the monitor who is supplied with equipment and chemicals.
Monitors record the testing results on a data sheet which is sent to the Program Administrator for inclusion in the Stafford Creeks database. The Program Administrator records the data in a base that is maintained on the website of Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay.
Every two years, Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay sends Friends data to the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) for inclusion in the biannual report that DEQ sends to Environmental Protection Agency and the citizens of Virginia.
Each monitor commits at least one hour per month to taking the vitals at his/her monitoring site. The results are recorded and sent to the Program Administrator.
Each monitor is trained before beginning the water quality monitoring. This takes between 2-3 hours. Each monitor is recertified annually at a 3-hour Friends’ gathering in the late summer or early fall.
All equipment is provided by Friends of Stafford Creeks. When a monitor leaves the program, he/she returns all unused chemicals and all equipment.
Although water temperature may be one of the easiest measurements to perform, it is probably one of the most important parameters to be considered.
It dramatically affects the rates of chemical and biochemical reaction within the water. Many biological, physical, and chemical principles are temperature-dependent. The most common of are: the solubility of compounds in sea water; distribution and abundance of organisms living in the Chesapeake Bay; rates of chemical reactions; water density; inversions and mixing; and current movements.
Temperature affects feeding, reproduction, and metabolism of aquatic animals; even a week or two of high temperatures may make streams and other shallow water unsuitable for sensitive aquatic organisms, even though temperatures are within tolerable levels throughout the rest of the year.
Causes of temperature change include: weather changes, removal of stream bank vegetation that provides shade; construction of dams and other impoundments; discharge of heated water from industry; urban storm water; and groundwater flows to streams.
Water dissolves mineral substances it contacts, picks up aerosols and dust from the air, receives man-made wastes, and supports photosynthetic organisms. All these processes affect pH. The buffering capacity of water, or its ability to resist pH change, is critical to aquatic life, as it determines the range of pH. Generally, the ability of aquatic organisms to complete a life cycle greatly diminishes as pH becomes as high as 9.0 or as low as 5.0.
Dissolved oxygen levels are an indicator of water quality. Oxygen levels may be reduced because of warm water temperatures and poor flushing. Run-off from farms or lawns containing fertilizers and other nutrients can over-fertilize aquatic plants. At first, aquatic vegetation will flourish and raise the dissolved oxygen levels found in the water. As the plants begin to die, the process of decomposition will deplete the oxygen content of the water. Eutrophication is the term used when high nutrient levels cause an excess of phytoplankton.
Material that becomes mixed and suspended in water will reduce its clarity and make the water turbid (dirty).
Turbidity affects fish and aquatic life in the following ways:
• Suspended materials interfere with the penetration of sunlight. Submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) needs light for photosynthesis. If suspended particles "block out" light, photosynthesis, which produces oxygen for fish and aquatic life, will be reduced. SAV provides essential food, nursery areas, shelter and habitat for diverse communities of shellfish, waterfowl and fish. If light levels become too low, photosynthesis may stop altogether and algae will die.
• Sediment buries eggs and benthic (bottom dwelling) organisms' habitat.
• Large amounts of suspended matter may clog the gills of fish and shellfish and kill them directly.
• Fish cannot see very well in turbid water and so may have difficulty finding food.
Any person or group willing to devote a small amount of time and energy to conduct simple water-quality checks on a regular basis can become a volunteer monitor. This includes anyone who lives on or near a stream or creek or is a frequent user of a particular segment of water.
Contact our Program Administrator at this address: postmaster@staffordcreeks.org:
[Much of the information on this page was taken from Rivertrends: Volunteer Water Quality Program Manual written by Alliance for the Cheasapeake Bay. You can find the complete manual here: http://www.acb-online.org/pubs/projects/d-206-08202007_123537.pdf]