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This semester’s Environmental projects Intern, Jordan Oliver, from Bowie State University, has concluded his time with the Alliance! The fall 2023 term brought some very special times which included monthly water quality monitoring, events, networking relationships, and exciting professional development opportunities.
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Clean water and resilient landscapes, cared for by all the people who live, work, and play in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. That’s the Alliance’s vision, and we are working on another piece of the puzzle that makes that vision clearer: community-based stream monitoring.
The Alliance’s Environmental Projects Interns from Bowie State University (BSU) have just finished up their time with us, and left a lasting impression.
The summer of 2022 marked the fourth year of the DC Citizen Science Water Quality Monitoring program, funded by our partners at the Department of Energy and Environment (DOEE). From May to September, during the peak recreation season, volunteers braved DC traffic each week to collect valuable water quality data about their watershed.
In the last three years working at Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, I’ve found work that allows me to coordinate some of those programs and resources that will enable people to be more informed about the health of their local waterways. I train community members to collect baseline water quality data within the Chesapeake Bay to look at long-term water quality trends. My journey with whitewater recreation and water quality are deeply intertwined, and I look forward to continuing to promote Chesapeake Bay stewardship and river safety in my circles and beyond.
Kerry and Dave enjoy visiting their monitoring sites year-round and getting to see the seasonal changes. They would encourage others to get involved in monitoring because collective efforts like RiverTrends will help us as a society understand trends and impacts within the Chesapeake Bay watershed that impact us all.
Meet Jack and Carol Kauffman, new residents of the Middle Peninsula of Virginia after moving from their longtime Pennsylvania homes in Montgomery and Berks Counties in 2018. Jack, a retired drug discovery scientist, and Carol, a retired teacher, chose their new home along Bland Creek, a tributary of the York River, because of the access is provided to water and nature. Soon after their move, they became involved with the Friends of the Dragon Run conservation group and met the members of the Virginia Master Naturalists, inspiring them to join the Middle Peninsula Master Naturalists chapter. Through this training, they were introduced to the RiverTrends monitoring project with Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay.
Meet Imogene Treble, a volunteer water quality monitor with the RiverTrends program since February of 2019. Imogene is a retired chemist from New Jersey who moved to Spotsylvania, Virginia to spend more time with her grandchildren. Soon after settling in Virginia, she learned about the Master Naturalist program, completed her training in 2016, and has …
Catherine Unger (she/her/hers) spent January 2021 as an intern with the Alliance’s Water Quality Monitoring Team where she learned how to use water quality monitoring equipment and developed a GIS Story Map to illustrate water quality data trends.
Volunteer citizen scientists have been monitoring water quality as part of the RiverTrends project for over 35 years. Each month, monitors gear up to collect observational data and measure the trends of their local streams, including air and water temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, bacteria, and salinity. These dedicated monitors give us a direct connection …
