In the News

Volunteers Monitor Stream Water Quality
date posted: December 22 2005

Lake Tahoe Report #74
July 6, 2004
By John Cobourn and Heather Segale


Of all the scientific research projects in progress in the Lake Tahoe/Truckee area, some of the most interesting work is being performed by citizen volunteers.

More and more residents are signing up to monitor water quality in streams that flow into Lake Tahoe and the Truckee River. Each May, the Lake Tahoe Environmental Education Coalition (LTEEC) organizes a large monitoring event called Snapshot Day. This event has drawn over 250 volunteers each of the last three years to collect scientific data on a Saturday morning.

In Truckee, the Truckee River Watershed Council (TRWC) has established a year-round monitoring program that seeks to collect baseline data on all the subwatersheds in the California portion of the Truckee River. This volunteer program is called the Truckee River Aquatic Monitors (TRAM).

TRAM volunteers study many of the same chemical properties of the water as LTEEC volunteers, such as the amount of dissolved oxygen in the water and its temperature, conductivity and pH. However, the TRAM volunteers have the extra excitement of collecting specimens of the small creatures that live in the stream channel, attached to rocks and gravel underwater. They receive formal training in bioassessment, which characterizes the health of the aquatic community in the stream.

Volunteers get right in the stream with a net to capture the small animals. They actually scrub the rocks and gravel in a designated area, and attempt to stir up the streambed enough to collect specimens of all the creatures living in the sample location. After the bugs are detached from their microhabitats, they simply float downstream into the net.

This ecological approach has some advantages over monitoring that is limited to chemical parameters. Because aquatic insects or “bugs” in the stream are good indicators of the water quality in the stream, and since they form communities over time, bioassessment allows scientists to evaluate the health of a stream over months or even years. Chemical parameters tend to vary more, so on a given sampling day, the results might not be indicative of the general condition of the water.

Why are aquatic insects such good indicators of water quality? As fishing enthusiasts know, some of the favorite foods of trout (stoneflies, mayflies, and caddis flies) are less tolerant of water pollution than other orders of insects. A good trout stream has these three types of insects. If the water quality in the stream is poor, fewer of these insects can survive, and the trout population is lower as a result.

By capturing and then carefully identifying the stream bugs (also called macroinvertebrates), stream monitors can group the bugs into categories based on their tolerance of pollution. If the stream has a high percentage of bugs that are tolerant of pollution and a low percentage of bugs that are intolerant of pollution, the water quality in that stream is relatively poor, and has been for some time.

Fortunately, aquatic insects are harmless to humans. They don’t bite or sting. On the other hand, they are actually fascinating to observe. Bioassessment monitors are trained to identify which stream bugs are built to shred and eat leaves that have fallen into the stream, which ones simply “graze” on stream algae, and which ones are predators that prey on grazers and shredders. In the Tahoe/Truckee area, most streams are of the headwaters stream type, and should contain a relatively high percentage of shredders.

Volunteer stream monitors provide a valuable service. They supplement the monitoring done by government agencies. By assessing stream health and water quality year after year, scientists can learn what major watershed changes, such as development, floods, or wildfires, will do to the stream. We can also determine the success or lack of success of restoration projects, such as those being constructed under the Lake Tahoe Environmental Improvement Program (EIP). This helps scientists improve restoration designs for future projects. For more information about the Truckee River Aquatic Monitors, call Beth Christman, (530) 550-8760.