Volunteer Monitoring throughout the Chesapeake Bay Watershed and Nationally

Allison Welch

Izaak Walton League of America, Clean Water Program

Bio

• Rising senior at the Pennsylvania State University graduating in May 2024

• Interested in Environmental Science, watershed health, and water quality and has a personal connection to the Chesapeake Bay.

• Majoring in Earth Sciences with a minor in Sustainability

Internship Overview

• Assist the Izaak Walton League of America with their volunteer monitoring programs

• My work allows the League to accomplish important things they didn't otherwise have bandwidth for and brings in a new perspective

• Primarily work out of the IWLA headquarters in Gaithersburg, MD

What is Volunteer Monitoring?

• Volunteer Monitoring programs enable community members to sample their local ecosystems

• Through quality assurance protocols, this data can be submitted to state and national level environmental departments to use as a guide on where to focus efforts

• Data collected is used to advocate for change in their communities and nationally

Our Programs

• Aquatic Benthic Macroinvertebrate Monitoring

• Chloride Monitoring for Road Salt Pollution

• Nitrate Monitoring

Save Our Streams

• Sampling the benthic macroinvertebrates that are living in streams to create an ecological score. The score is based on the ratio of each macroinvertebrate found because they all have different pollution resistances.

Salt Watch

• The Izaak Walton League provides chloride testing strips to volunteers nationwide so they can monitor levels of chloride in their local waterways. This action can track the road salt runoff that is currently polluting streams and drinking water sources around the country.

Nitrate Watch

• The Izaak Walton League provides nitrate testing strips to volunteers around the country so they can monitor nitrate levels. Fertilizer runoff is polluting our waterways with nitrate causing excess nutrients, algal blooms, and dead zones.

Methods & Activities

• Promote volunteer methods of communicating data and advocating for clean water

• Collect macroinvertebrate, chloride, and nitrate data to add to a national database

• Make science and monitoring more accessible for volunteers of all backgrounds

• Analyzed data and collected research to share through Canva and ArcGIS.

• Interviewed volunteers and wrote their stories to share in blog posts

• Performed chemical sampling weekly and became certified in macroinvertebrate sampling

GOALS

RESULTS

Volunteer Spotlights

Alice & Vincent

Karl

Mike

Bepe & Jane

Salt Watch Volunteers

Salt Watch Volunteer

Nitrate Watch Volunteer

Save Our Streams Volunteers

Des Moines, IA

Grayson County, VA

Nitrate Watch Story Map

Large, dark blue points represent data that is 11ppm or above, these readings are considered "poor"

Habitat Assessment Manual

Chloride, Nitrate, and Macroinvertebrate Sampling

Chloride (ppm)

Trainings

Data

Competencies: Systems Thinking

How volunteer data is collected and shared

Volunteers

Partnerships

Quality Assurance Procedures

Data Agreements with State and Federal Agencies

Communication of Results

Creation of Volunteer Resources

State & Federal Agencies

Discussion

• Goals for the future of my projects:
• Continue to make science accessible for citizen volunteers and empower volunteers to advocate for clean water
• Plans for my future:
• I am starting a water quality research position at Penn State in the fall and plan to continue to pursue related field of work.

Thank you!

• Other Activities: the Mid-Atlantic Volunteer Monitoring Conference

• Thank you to my lovely mentors and coworkers!

and thank you Matthew for making this