The Official Blog of Alabama Water Watch
Alabama Water Watch and Wolf Bay Watershed Watch (WBWW) were showcased in the Ecological Society of America’s publication Issues in Ecology – Investing in Citizen Science Can Improve Natural Resource Management and Environmental Protection.
Continue reading “AWW and Wolf Bay Watershed Watch Showcased Nationally”
Two Alabama Water Watch volunteer monitors, Beth Prior (Auburn High School student) and Sydney Smith (AU student), have compiled various forms of data about Parkerson Mill Creek on Auburn University’s campus, with the goal of highlighting negative impacts on the stream and encouraging landscape managers to address them.
Continue reading “Auburn student monitors watch over Parkerson Mill Creek”
I first met LaVerne at an annual meeting of the Smith Lake water watchers several years ago. He immediately struck me as a straightforward gentleman who was concerned about preserving and protecting the environment and was committed to doing something about it. He introduced himself and then asked me ‘can we get AWW to come up to Winston County and conduct some of your water testing classes for us?” I replied that we would be thrilled to train folks in Winston County in water quality monitoring since we had no volunteer water monitors there. And thus it began. Continue reading “We miss you, LaVerne!”
One of the most common misconceptions that we, the AWW staff, frequently encounter in our travels throughout the state is “the state is looking after my creek/river/lake/bay/bayou, right?” Unfortunately, in the majority of cases, the answer is “sort of”. With more than 77,000 miles of streams/rivers and over half a million acres of pond/lakes/reservoirs in the state, even a well-funded state agency would be hard-pressed to monitor Alabama’s waters, let alone a state agency that’s been cut to the bone, as the Alabama Department of Environmental Management has been.
Enter Alabama Water Watch. As the AWW monitors, trainers and friends from eight of the state’s ten major basins learned at AWW’s Annual Gathering on Saturday, June 13th, the collective efforts of hundreds of citizen volunteer monitors are taking up the slack.
By: Eric ReutebuchGood question, Mr. Lorax! A group of fourteen enthusiastic citizen volunteers joined AWW staffers, Sergio Ruiz –Córdova and Mona Dominguez, to participate in an Exploring Our Living Steams workshop for an answer. The two-day workshop was conducted at New Site, AL, organized and sponsored by Sabrina Wood, Alabama Clean Water Partnership Facilitator for the Tallapoosa Basin. Folks came from Alexander City, Jackson’s Gap, Dadeville, Eclectic, Wedowee, Montgomery, Rockford, Auburn and Daviston to learn about Alabama’s streams. Continue reading “Who speaks for the streams?”
It was a bitter-sweet day last Tuesday when we gathered downstairs here in the CASIC Building for the retirement celebration of our director, Dr. Sam Fowler.
We hope that you enjoy the following article that one of our faithful AWW water monitors sent to us last week. Marty Schulman, water monitor extraordinaire, has been employing his monitoring talents in the protection of one of the most endangered fish species in Alabama, and for that matter, in the United States! Marty was the recipient of the coveted 2015 Alabama Rivers Alliance James Lowery Service Award (an expansion of the ARA Volunteer of the Year Award) for his service as an Alabama Water Watch monitor on behalf of US Fish and Wildlife Service at three of the five known habitats of the endangered watercress darter that exist worldwide.
The beloved watercress darter is indigenous to Alabama, and is now limited to a few springs and spring runs (four natural areas, and one where the darter was introduced) in the Birmingham area. Though small in size (measuring to about 2.5 inches in maximum length), this darter rivals tropical reef fish in beauty and coloration (see picture below).
After being trained and certified as an AWW monitor, Marty has been faithfully monitoring water quality at darter habitats in the Birmingham area since 2008. He and fellow members of the Watercress Darter Monitoring Program water monitoring group, have conducted 255 water sampling events and submitted their data to AWW’s online database. Some of the data records from Roebuck Springs, one of the remaining habitats of the watercress darter, are shown below. Continue reading “For the love of the darter”
On April 1st, 2015 the 15-yr old FrontPage server that hosts the AWW Online Database will be turned off forever. But don’t despair – our database gurus, Jim Johnson and Sergio (below), have worked countless long hours and late nights over the past 12 months to update and transfer the AWW database to a newer-faster-better server!
The staff of Alabama Water Watch was saddened by the news of Jerald Conway’s death in late 2014. Jerald worked at the Montgomery Water Works and Sanitary Sewer Board for 38 years and was the Director of Environmental Services there.
Continue reading “AWW is saddened by the loss of an elite water monitor”
Many smaller cities and communities in Alabama may have been wailing and gnashing their teeth back a few years ago after the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) released its General Phase II MS4 Stormwater Permit requirements. As part of these requirements, smaller communities had to develop a stormwater management program to prevent pollutants in stormwater from flushing into their stormwater sewers and local streams. The program had to include drafting a stormwater management plan, implementing a stormwater monitoring program, conducting a stormwater/nonpoint source pollution outreach program, and submitting an annual stormwater report to ADEM. The merits of government regulations can be debated, but the fact is, the Phase II requirements are here to stay, and small communities started searching for efficient ways to meet the Phase II requirements from ADEM.
