This month, the CMC says a very fond farewell to Emily Bialowas, Chesapeake Monitoring Outreach Coordinator (Izaak Walton League of America). Emily has been working with the CMC for 5 years, working on overall CMC coordination as well as Benthic Monitoring with the VA Save Our Streams program. Emily will be headed up to New […]
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The Choose Clean Water Conference was held last week in Richmond, VA, the first in person conference in 3 years! The conference offered a suite of presentations tackling the Chesapeake Bay’s biggest water quality issues and the incredible work being done to address them. There were great presentations covering topics from forest buffers to microplastic […]
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In May the Izaak Walton League’s Virginia Save Our Streams Coordinator trekked across central Virginia to provide benthic macroinvertebrate trainings in Petersburg and Blacksburg. The Petersburg training was attended by Virginia State University faculty and members of the Virginia Master Naturalists Pocahontas Chapter. The training was held on VSU’s campus where volunteers learned the Rocky […]
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The Alliance received a grant from Chesapeake Bay Trust to leverage existing volunteer monitoring groups in the CMC network to collect benthic macroinvertebrate samples to fill existing data gaps for the Chesapeake Bay Program. This sample collection protocol was new to the CMC team, which meant we needed to acquire quite a bit of new equipment […]
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Macroinvertebrate monitoring calls for patience, a keen eye for little critters, and depending on what table you’re using, a strong back! When spending a few hours bending over a table to sort, count, and identify macros, your back can start to feel the burn. Some Save Our Streams monitors have opted for short enough tables […]
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Behind every map and graph are countless data points and hours of data collection. When you add the time involved in compiling, formatting, and visualizing that data, the total effort towards a data summary can double. Therefore, in preparation for our largest data exploration experience to date, the entire ALLARM team got involved. There are […]
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Community members at Aquia Harbor in Virginia have been collecting water quality samples every month since 2013 at four sites to educate their neighbors about their local water quality! In April, 6 monitors were recertified under RiverTrends to continue their monitoring efforts. We had a great day in the field reviewing methods, learning how to […]
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In April the Izaak Walton League of America hosted three Save Our Streams trainings. The trainings were held to certify new benthic macroinvertebrate monitors in the rocky and muddy bottom collection protocols. The first two trainings were held in Richmond, Virginia and were cohosted by IWLA and Wild Virginia. 13 people attended and were able […]
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The Izaak Walton League of America hosted three benthic macroinvertebrate trainings in March to certify new Save Our Streams monitors. The first training was attended by eight enthusiastic high school students who are members of their school’s Trout Out of the Classroom afterschool club in Vienna, VA. One student brought his own viewing tank and […]
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