By Donella Meadows
–July 11, 1996–
The good news is that our Clean Water Act, plus billions of dollars in municipal treatment plants and industrial wastewater processing, has rescued many of our streams and lakes from sewerhood.
The bad news is that, with the nastiest waste pipes cleaned up, we still insult our waterbodies with filled-in wetlands, runoff from lawns and farms, here a dam, there a dam, everywhere a little acid rain or toxic fallout. Ponds cloud up with strange weeds. Almost all the oysters are gone from Chesapeake Bay. Only one percent of the natural wetlands of Iowa remain. Warnings about contaminated local fish or shellfish are posted in 45 states.
Water quality and water creatures continue to decline not because we lack protective laws, but because the laws are tepidly enforced. A recent report from the Environmental Defense Fund blames “inadequate authority, funding limitations, and bureaucratic timidity.”
Within that bad news, however, there is a bit of good news. Where government fails, caring citizens are stepping in. In just a day of calling around New England, I uncovered a wealth of citizen efforts to monitor, protect, and restore local lakes and rivers. They’re scattered, they’re vastly underfunded, but they demonstrate how public and private efforts could join to clean up our water.
Watershed Watch at the University of Rhode Island, for example, keeps 250 volunteers busy at 90 locations taking weekly water samples from April through November. The university trains the volunteers, gives them the equipment, does the lab tests, and collates the information (which is passed back to the volunteers and on to the state Department of Environmental Management). Not only do students, auto mechanics, police officers, teachers and retired folks provide free labor, they also raise much of the amazingly low cost of the program, through their local conservation commissions or lake associations.
No one has to beat the bushes to find these volunteers. As word spreads, more communities ask to join. Says Elizabeth Herron of Watershed Watch, “It’s great to have to go out on your favorite lake once a week. Hey, I’m not going fishing, I’m going monitoring!”
Her job is to check on the quality of the information coming in. She’s delighted to report that well-trained citizens collect data as reliably as professionals. “You don’t have to be a scientist. You just have to love a stream and be willing to follow directions.”
Jody Conner at the Lakes Program of the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services works with 500 volunteers to monitor 125 lakes (out of 800 in the state) “I can’t say enough for the volunteers,” he says. “They’re my ears and eyes. If there’s problem on the lake, they call me.”
As in Rhode Island the New Hampshire program started with just one group asking for help in understanding just one lake. The next year there were ten lakes, and things exploded from there. Now Conner’s program helps people form lake associations, puts out videos and books and kids’ programs, and trains monitors to take water samples and, in advanced courses, to keep track of water plants, bugs and fish.
Each group gets an annual report with time graphs of how its lake is changing. The ones who’ve been in the program longest are beginning to trace water quality up tributaries. The New Hampshire volunteers also turn out information of professional quality. It goes into the state report on which waters are swimmable and fishable. It is helping a study of mercury accumulation in fish. Above all, it tells local governments and citizens when there is trouble in their water, so they can do something about it first hand and right away.
One of the most active and enthusiastic coordinators of citizen efforts on behalf of water is Dr.Paul Godfrey of the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. He started in 1983 helping citizens monitor acid rain throughout the state. “One year we surveyed 200 lakes and streams for $100 each. The same year EPA did 2000 waterbodies and spent $8000 each.” Now Godfrey holds together the Massachusetts Waterwatch Partnership, a coalition of state agencies, universities and citizens’ groups on 50 lakes and 10 rivers.
Pressed for funds (“I spend 20-30 percent of my time looking for money”), Godfrey has turned his garage into a workshop where he turns out low-cost monitoring equipment. He makes samplers for bottom water out of Mason jars, cement, epoxy, rope and tubes from Bic pens. He turned out 100 Secchi disks at half the cost of buying them. (Secchi disks look like dinner plates painted black and white in opposite quadrants. To measure clarity you lower them in the water to see how far down they are visible.)
These programs — and there are many others — live hand-to-mouth. They don’t have the budgets to cover all the waterbodies that need to be watched. They depend too much on a few dedicated experts who maintain quality and enthusiasm. And they focus on monitoring, which is not fixing.
But without monitoring, you don’t know what needs fixing. And these citizen programs do much more than provide free information to governments too chintzy to fund the implementation of their own laws. They educate people about how water works, how important it is, and precisely how it gets messed up. They give folks the information and power to insist that government do what needs to be done. And they depolarize discussions, as more and more citizens know and understand the facts. Paul Godfrey saw this happen with his acid rain monitoring program, as the discussion changed from angry ideological stand-offs to “more like a conversation over the back fence.”
You’d think state and federal agencies would know a good deal when they see it and fund these monitoring efforts.
Maybe sometime soon they will.
(Donella H. Meadows is an adjunct professor of environmental studies at Dartmouth College.)
$100,000 would allow us to do what we do without spending time scrambling for money. Double that we could have more people in the field.. People want to make a difference, want to have their data used, have to give them decent equipment and training, data will meet the quality standards of the scientific community. Have to make it actually possible for people on an extended basis, a few things that everybody needs to know,
Tighter partnerships between fed, state, local govs & the people in the watersheds. Getting people from EPA & the state sitting down with the volunteer monitors and hearing what they need. We need a program with some $ to help us out, will come from this dialog. Started to happen at NE Aquarium. Info across states helps too.
All the state & legislative machinery in place, matter of enforcement & $. Puts gov, academia, watershed groups together in creative ways, some already invented, but scattered.
“They’re all acts of desperation, but very uplifting.” Said Dr. Les Kaufman of Boston University, after attending a conference on citizen monitoring sponsored by the New England Aquarium. “I expected to be upset at end of day, but instead I was very excited.”
Buy 3-4 scientists to oversee the quality, or buy 300-400 scientists to go out and get the data, or don’t get the data (the current choice).
acid rain — avoid polarization, people know the date and the science, most cost-effective , conversation over the back fence. Geoff Dates, Riverwatch, likes to see people use their own data to work out their own problems locally, rather than call in the officials.
too scattered
EPA 202-260-2090 OWOW, Alice Maio 260-7018. Office to encourage this, not a lot of money but help with manuals & standards, national conference, newsletter, The Volunteer Monitor. # of EPA projects showing up with grassroots aspects. About 4 years ago. Merrimac River Initiative, Sue Handley in Northwest office.
Mass Audubon magazine on ponds, mass state training programs (also NH VT Me) to train citizens to monitor ponds. Cd be combined with other efforts to use biotic indices like bridle shiner. Possible for people at local level to assume stewardship responsibility. Various agencies in Ma have directed representatives to work together as a team, so citizens have direct access in one source to set up a stewardship program. All just starting,
Greg Stone 973-5229, NE Aquarium & Heather Tausig 617-973-0274 organized meeting, know the stories of the successful efforts. Mark Chandler 973-5274, bridle shiner research dept at Aquarium — cover to start project to clean up ponds & rivers.
System for citizen involvement exists & is very good but resources not adequate on meaningful scale. Once citizens find out their lake is failing, there’s no way to close the loop. Resolution now to make that possible and to interpret water adequacy in terms of native species, not only game. 50 lakes in MA in program, 900 should be. 800 in Mass.
Jane Calvin, Lowell Parks & Conservation Trust. 508-934-0030.
Jody Conner, Stephanie Moses, , Concord (dir education program North American Lake Management Society) 603-271-3414. People always coming to find out how to get started. 500 volunteers, monitor 125 lakes (out of 800), water quality trends. Help people form a lake association (video & book available & educ program for kids on limnology), dues raise $ ($10-$50/year), monitoring group, monthly basis, JJA, NH does 10 tests for free, 2 cost $. First monitor lake, then watershed, exotic weeds, plant surveys, zooplankton, invertebrates in tributary, testing fish for Hg studying correlation of age of fish with hg content Each association get annual report with time trends on what’s happening. Older ones tracing up tributaries. Every 2 years 305B report, sent to EPA, required from every state — what % of streams are swimmable, fishable. Every weekend I go to a different lake association, teach them what phosphorus is, how important what they’re doing is. Lot of young people, but most of them retired, engineers, biologists. Stoddard runs 5-6 programs in town. One biologist & one intern full time follow up the monitoring. Started 15 years ago, this guy called me up and wanted some data on his lake, last 5 years ago, “I wanta know what’s going on now.” Mr. Garland Mountain View Lake in Sunapee. “Want to help monitor?” showed him how to use the equipment, came in once a month with samples. Told others, next year 10 lakes, then just exploded. Scientific community has a skepticism with lay people doing testing, tendency is that we shouldn’t rely on their data, you have to develop quality control mechanism, make sure they’re trained well, usually no problem, so well trained.
Tighter partnerships between fed, state, local govs & the people in the watersheds. Getting people from EPA & the state sitting down with the volunteer monitors and hearing what they need. We need a program with some $ to help us out, will come from this dialog. Started to happen at NE Aquarium. Info across states helps too.
Debbie Dineen, Sudbury Conservation Commission. 508-443-8891 x370.
Dr.Paul Godfrey, UMass Amherst Blaisdell House, Umass Amherst 01003-0820. Fax 454-2304, godfrey@tei.umass.edu. Mass Waterwatch Partnership.– state agencies DEP DEM, university, Riverwatch Network, Congress of Lakes & Ponds, Watershed Coalitions. 413-545-2842. Biol monitoring of ponds for citizens groups. Back in 1983 started acid rain monitoring project, got a lot of volunteers, quallity control program. Ran for 10 years, used by NAPAP. First national citizen monitoring conferences, 86? 88? Presented there, spent most of time talking about quality control. Hoosic River, Jerry Schoen, had a bunch of folks, didn’t know what they were doing, asked for help, didn’t know what to do with the numbers they had. PG realized how many folks were doing same sorts of things. Housed in Water Resources Research Center. Each group do what we do best. Center does quality control, coordination, data management. Funds mostly from foundations, one state grant. Hand to mouth, $60,000/year, 1 3/4 person, 20-30% of time spent looking for more money. 10 river systems, around 50 lakes — out of 3000. Training — prioritize problems in watershed, how to monitor (split into rivers and lakes), quality control, collect data and produce annual summary for lakes (not rivers, too diverse), workshops on data interpretation and presentation. If analyses can be done locally, we prefer it that way, when not possible, we do it at costs (total P, nitrate, chlorophyll). For rivers benthic macroinvertebrate surveys. Lakes, weed mapping. When they get stuck, there’s a place they can go get help. We help identify strange species. State uses data for 305b report, necessary to send to EPA every 2 years.
$100,000 would allow us to do what we do without spending time scrambling for money. Double that we could have more people in the field. Acid rain $200,000 per year for 10 year. One year did surfey of 200 lakes & streams. EPA did 2000, for $16,000,0000. People want to make a difference, want to have their data used, have to give them decent equipment and training, data will meet the quality standards of the scientific community. Have to make it actually possible for people on an extended basis, a few things that everybody needs to know,
lakes — wanted DO in bottom waters. Go out & buy $300 meter that has to be standardized, or give them a $100 kit to do a Winkler titration, useful for DO, sulfate, alkalinity. Simple design for an incubator for bacteria — aquarium heater, styrofoam cooler. Sampler for lake bottom water, Mason jar 1/4 full of cement on the bottom, sealed with epoxy, 60 ml DO bottle, seals airtight. Cap has 2 big sticks, one goes into DO bottle, one shorter, caps on sticks have threaded twine through them. Eyebolt to hold rope, clip on rope on twine. Give a little jerk, water goes into long tube, air out the short one, bring up to surface. Someone in WIS did most of design work, Godfrey perfected it. Made them in his garage in spare time, sells for $3.25 in materials. Finally wrote to BIC corporation and asked for donation of sticks & caps. Plastic aneling they put in bathrooms at UMASS, commercial version sells for $85.
National Secchi disk Dip-in, run out of Kent State, most every state doing it, DEM gave$ to buy disks, PG made about 100 at 1/2 cost, 8 inch dinner plate, opposite quarters white & black, lower till you can’t see it put on clothespin, raise until you can, take the average. Doesn’t distinguish turbidity & chlorophyll
chlorophyll better — glass-fiber filter sample of water, extract CH with acetone, measure on spectrophotometer, has to done within one day. Or do filtration & freeze filter. People could filter at home & freeze in home freezer. NH used millipore filter & air dried, couldn’t make it consistent with glass-fiber. Thought of using fan to air-dry, can hold filters up to 9 days. People could do at home & mail in. Fans from old computers, make box in garage, cap from sewer pipe, egg-crate-type diffusers from fluorescent lamps as a screen. Design has gone through 3 iterations. Costs $250 to set up a group.
Ground-truthing 50 lakes to match with LANDSAT on 50 lakes.
50-60 lake groups & 100 7-9 river groups, don’t know how many people in each. “Almost anybody you could pick off the sidewalk in a normal town. A bit more in the retired category. CEOs to students. Mostly middle class and middle aged. Activists. Very much involved in their communities.”
Riverwatch, Montpelier, Geoff Dates 802-223-3840 home 436-2544, GREEN conference 313-763-2994– have a program in Hungary? Watershed groups, schools, cons. Districts. 60 river basins, 16 states — just one of many. National nonprofit, organizational & technical assistance. Pueblos in NM, Abenaki. Foundations, indiv contributions, fees for services. Try to include all the interested folk, including industry, towns, etc. Jack Byrne, 223-8080 exec. Director. In tens of thousands. May be primary source of environmental data. Like to see groups using data to solve local problems.
John Hatch, treasurer, Concerned Citizens of Thompson Pond Spencer MA. 508-885-3881. Group got started when they wanted to put in condos, were successful in stopping. Ham & bean type supper, door prizes. Went to classes, taking monthly samples. Raised $2500 to maintenance.
Elizabeth Herron, URI Watershed Watch 401-874-2905. Sending fax. Housed at coop ext URI, 250 volunteers, 90 location, monitoring lakes, ponds, rivers, april-nov, weekly, overall trophic status, clarity (Secchi disk), DO, temp, nutrients, salts, coliform, pH, algae. Get kits, but UNRI does nutrients. Data supplied to RI Dept of Env Management. Publishes annual rept for volunteers. $ from cons commissions, other local sponsors. “Cost effective but not free. Prioritizes areas for intensive study, flags problems in watershed, informs wastewater Mng distrists. Gives people tools & power to manage own waterbodies. Started w one group 1988 1st year of monitoring Wood-Pawcatuck (2 rivers) watershed association, sole-source watershed, federally identified as outstanding resource. Another community asked to join. Federal “clean lakes funds” — matched local funds now finished, under Clean Water Act, appropriations stopped in 1995. Had to cut back # of sites. 2 staff people & equipment. $75,000/Year. Now biol monitoring, plants & invertebrates — insects, clams, mussels Next year 10th anniversary. To celebrate bringing NE Chapter of N AM Lake Management Society NEC NALMS. Prog Director Linda Green. Indoor training session & several field sessions. Mentoring program. QAQC — volunteers collecting data as high quality as professionally collected data. Everything from high school students to large % of retired people, auto mechanics, police officers, schoolteachers, college professors, chemists, housewives.
Christopher Kilian, VNRC 802-223-2328.
Carol Hildreth, Massachusetts Congress of Lake & Pond COLAP Associations 508-429-5085. In existence since 1979, about 120 assocs., just under 3000 in state. Groups of property owners, issues like boating regulations, dock & pier licensing, more recently excess vegetation. Coalition helps with networking, & we are networkedwith NALMS. Give workshop on current issues & lake & pond management. Work with state Dept of Env Man., founding member of Mass. Waterwatch Partnership, along with watershed coalitions, Umass amherst, Not that much funding for this, people work out partnerships, DEM has a few $ to help out. State has not embraced citizen water quality monitoring. Will the data be good enough? 1994 Mass Lake and Pond Managment Policy, adopted by ma water resources council. Inside DOEA, pushed for from outside. Updated generic EI report.
Betsy Shure Gross, Friends of Leverett Pond 617-730-2088 Brookline Conservation Commission.
Ken Wagner FUGRO Int. Consultant for citizen groups 508-393-6779 x143
Copyright Sustainability Institute 1996
