MONITORING PROGRAM OF FRIENDS OF CABIN JOHN CREEK WATERSHED Roy Seidenstein Montgomery County Watershed Conference October 27, 2007,

FOCJCW’s MONITORING PROGRAM Monitored for 6 years (Oct Sept 2006) Submitted data to Montgomery County Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and posted on our own website At peak, monitored 4 times annually at 10 sites with approx 50 monitors participating DEP monitors only once every 5 years

FOCJCW’s MONITORING PROGRAM (cont’d) Mostly used simple Izaac Walton League of America (IWLA) – Save Our Streams (SOS) Benthic Macro Invertebrate (BMI) Protocol Included simple Habitat Assessment (e.g., vegetation, erosion, temp, PH, DO) Also used Audubon Naturalist Society (ANS) BMI Protocol

FOCJCW’s MONITORING PROGRAM (cont’d) Main differences between IWLA & ANS protocols are: IWLA-SOS produces immediate bottom-line score based on types of BMI found ANS identifies certain types of BMI to the more specific “family” taxonomic level, rather than the more general “order” level Also collected BMI samples for Maryland State Dept of Natural Resources (DNR) Stream Waders Program (2002 & 2003) FOCJCW collected samples DNR did bug identification

Data Conclusions Cabin John Creek Watershed water quality is known to suffer from impervious surfaces and stormwater runoff Volunteer monitoring data can show trends both among locations and over time Consistency of data results seems to indicate validity of method

DATA AVERAGES, BY SITE

EARLY DATA RESULTS BMI Score

Pros Relatively easy to collect data of some scientific validity (*but see Con #1 below) Fun to meet people, get outdoors into the creek, and look at cool critters under microscopes Excellent way to mobilize grass-roots constituency

Cons Other organizations (incl. gov’t) may not use much of your data Organizing volunteers can be a lot of time- consuming work Need to continually recruit and train new members to replace departures