Sunday, October 13, 2013

Watershed Watch

 My family participated in the Watershed Watch Saturday. We, and other volunteers, met with biologist Miranda Adams from Idaho DEQ to do some "snapshot" testing of Boise River water quality. Our stations was on the south side of the Whitewater Park. My husband thought the critter above was a lobster. Close. It's a crawdad or crawfish. There were quite a few and they were big!
 A chilly morning, but not frosty and look at how gorgeous the river was. Miranda explained to us that although it looks pretty and many people play in it, it is technically an "impaired" river because of pollution - mainly too much phosphorous and water temperatures that are too high..
 Miranda is displaying a chart to help us decide on the pH level of the water. It was normal.
 We did a "critter" count, because life in the river is an indicator of water quality. We also searched for uninvited invasive species.
Yep. Trash. Plenty at this site. We picked it all up. Lots of cigarette butts, above is a towel, pieces of styrofoam and paper were the types of litter. 
 We used this kit to check the level of dissolved oxygen.

 This is my kiddo comparing the water sample to the kit samples to determine a measurement.
We found water mites, leeches and caddis fly larvae. The overall rating for the river according to our preliminary research was "fair."

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