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SURFSIDE BEACH VOLUNTEER WATER QUALITY MONITORING
SURFSIDE BEACH VOLUNTEER WATER QUALITY MONITORING Information Fact Sheet (02/16/10) WHAT IS Volunteer Monitoring? When trained citizen volunteers collect scientific data. Examples: water quality, bird counts, turtle counts, weather, oysters (SCORE) WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS? Leverages brains, experience and insights of the volunteers Get more sampling done. Better connect data collection to community concerns and policy decisions Help meet Surfside’s NPDES Phase II Stormwater Program requirements Promotes environmental stewardship Intergenerational activity HOW ARE THE DATA USED? Identify hot spots Detect illicit discharges Detect trends over time Document improvements from stormwater management activities WHAT IS MEASURED AND HOW? Bacteria (E. coli and Total Coliform) – Easygel incubation – dual confirmation Nutrients (ammonia, nitrate, nitrite) – test strips Turbidity – desktop meter Salinity, temperature, oxygen, pH – field meters WHO ELSE IS DOING THIS LOCALLY? Murrells Inlet ( 8 sites biweekly) since 2008 Waccamaw River (12 sites biweekly) since 2006 Please explore the web pages for the Waccamaw River and Murrells Inlet programs at: http://www.coastal.edu/wwa/vm/index.html Prepared by the Waccamaw Watershed Academy WHAT DO WE GET FOR $7000 PER YEAR PER SAMPING SITE? Provision of training, all equipment and supplies o includes replacement of aging/broken equipment Quality control of all data o Rretraining if data is not meeting QC requirements or at your request Project SOPs and Quality Assurance Project Plan Online data entry Secure data archiving One data conference per year including data interpretation Rapid response reports for illicit discharge detection One meeting of the volunteers per year (luncheon or breakfast) A project brochure Project web site including online interactive data delivery o One month lag on average Participation in World Water Monitoring Day WHAT OTHER MONITORING IS BEING DONE (OR HAS BEEN DONE) IN SURFSIDE? SC DHEC – BEACH monitoring program May through October since 1997 o Enterococcus in surf zone. VM in monitoring at Woodlawn Drive as part of Murrells Inlet program. Short –term o Horrry County: Sediment pond (2009) o US EPA: qPCR validation (2009) o USGS: turbidity/bacteria prediction model (2006) o CCU: homeowner bacteria sampling (2000) o Davis & Floyd: bacteria grab sampling (2000) WHAT DO WE DO NEXT? Sign contract, CCU buys equipment Designate a field leader (?) Recruit and train volunteers o Partner with Murrells Inlet? Pick sampling site o What is it that you are looking to know? o Practicality Pick sampling date and time Prepared by the Waccamaw Watershed Academy