Volunteer Monitoring Program
There are numerous lakes, wetlands, river miles and resources in need of protection throughout the Middle Fork Crow watershed. It is impossible for the staff and board of the MFCRWD to know what is happening throughout the 275 mile area. Therefore, volunteers are an essential component to learning and managing our water resources. Additionally, we believe that citizens who learn about and care for their resources are the best way to protect those resources as they have the history and connection to the resource. Through day to day interaction volunteers can be aware of changes, problems or improvements to their lake or river area.

Our volunteer program focuses on stream and lake monitoring efforts. We are building on a strong volunteer network that was established in the past several years by the “Middle Fork River Lakes Partnership” made up of folks who really care about our local water resources. This group obtained funding and technical support to conduct volunteer monitoring on many lakes and stream sites in the New London/Spicer area which resulted in the development of an annual report on monitoring efforts (see reports page). There also was an active group in the Diamond Lake area who conducted monitoring efforts through the MPCA enhanced citizen monitoring program.

In order to build our volunteer program we worked with the CROW (www.crowriver.org) to write and submit a grant proposal to the MPCA in the fall of 2006 to increase and enhance volunteer monitoring efforts in the entire Crow River Watershed, which is a 2,725 square mile basin and includes the North Fork, Middle Fork, South Fork and Buffalo Creek watersheds. This grant was approved and we began to implement the program in March 2007. The goal of the volunteer monitoring project is twofold: 1) expand the CROW’s and MFCRWD’s training programs and outreach efforts enabling our organizations to recruit and retain additional citizen volunteers for both lake and stream monitoring in the Crow River Watershed and 2) enhance and complete datasets for streams and lakes throughout the watershed to evaluate overall water quality. We are pleased to be collaborating with Minnesota Waters (www.minnesotawaters.org) and the North Fork Crow River Watershed District on this project.

Currently there are 10 volunteers taking sampling the chemistry and transparency on 5 lakes and 11 river sites in the Middle Fork Crow watershed. There also are more volunteers who take transparency readings or rain gage readings. Volunteers attend training sessions and submit data to our office once per month throughout the open water season.

Interested in Volunteering?
Monitoring our lakes and streams is an important way to contribute through volunteering your time while enjoying the outdoors. Volunteers must attend a training course. Two training sessions were held in March and April of 2008. If you are interested in volunteering please contact our office and we will put you on a mailing list to alert you of training opportunities. If you are unable to attend a course, please let us know and we will try to provide additional training sessions.

Lake Transparency monitoring using a Secchi disk.
A Secchi disk is lowered into the lake to determine water clarity. There is a strong correlation between Secchi disk transparency depths and the amount of phosphorus in a lake. Secchi disk readings are usually taken once per week or once every other week. Currently, we are looking for volunteers on Elkhorn and the upper portion of Monogalia Lake.

Enhanced Monitoring Program
We also have funding for volunteers to conduct enhanced monitoring by collecting water quality samples that are sent to a laboratory for chemistry analysis. Lake analysis includes determining the concentrations of: 1) Chlorophyll-a, which indicates amount of algae; 2) Total Phosphorus and 3) Total Suspended Solids. Stream analysis includes determining the concentrations of: 1)Total Kjeldahl Nitrogen, which is organically bound nitrogen plus ammonia; 2) Total Phosphorus and 3) Total Suspended Solids. All results from the lake monitoring program except Total Suspended Solids are available by visiting the RMB Environmental Lab website at www.rmbel.info. Results of the stream monitoring program are available by contacting our office. Funding for lake and stream chemistry is limited, so volunteers are encouraged to notify us right away to determine eligibility of funding. We are currently looking for volunteers to collect chemistry samples on Elkhorn and upper portions of Monongalia Lake.