Water Quality Tests Focus On Health Of Aquatic Life

By Sara Jerome,
@sarmje

Volunteers in Connecticut are using a quirky method to test their water quality: sampling the aquatic life in local streams. The data they collect is eventually analyzed by state officials.

The so-called “riffle-dwelling benthic macroinvertebrate sampling project” does not have a catchy name. But the annual test may be an effective way to test the health of water resources.

"A private coldwater fisheries conservation group recently sponsored a field project during which volunteers armed with collection gear retrieved various examples of such tiny animals from local streams and rivers in seeking to gauge those waterbodies’ cleanliness, and thus suitability as trout habitat," according to the Newtown Bee.

The count and sort of macroinvertebrates in the water tells the volunteers about the ecological health of the waterway. According to the EPA, "examples of aquatic macroinvertebrates include insects in their larval or nymph form, crayfish, clams, snails, and worms. Most live part or most of their life cycle attached to submerged rocks, logs, and vegetation."

In this project, volunteers are looking for mayflies, stoneflies, and caddisflies, in particular, according to the report. That's because they live in cleaner waters. Net-spinners, water pennies, dobsonflies, and fishflies are able to survive in water with more pollution. Amphipods, isopods, leeches, midges, blackflies, snails, and worms are able to survive an even greater level of water pollution.

The tests were conducted by the Candlewood Valley Chapter of Trout Unlimited. "The local macroinvertebrate sampling project, which the group conducts annually, started in 2006 after two serious fuel spills had occurred at Fairfield Hills, threatening the ecological health of Deep Brook there, which is a natural trout hatchery," the news report said.

The results of the testing eventually feed into state water quality data.

"The riffle-dwelling benthic macroinvertebrate sampling project also is part of a statewide effort by the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) to obtain water quality data. DEEP will analyze the samples and data collected in Newtown and across the state in compiling scientific information about water quality," the news report said.

Connecticut is not alone in this approach to water quality testing. For instance, New York's Department of Environmental Conservation draws on such data, as well. Volunteers who collect samples are called citizen scientists in the Water Assessments By Volunteer Evaluators (WAVE) program.

Such volunteers "collect benthic macroinvertebrates from wadeable streams. To do so, participants submit sampling locations for review and attend a four-hour training session that provides hands-on experience with the required collection methods," the department said.

Image credit: "tardigrade” © 2012, used under an Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/