The Water Resource Management Department has partnered with the Save Our Saugahatchee and the Alabama Water Watch to improve the water quality of local creeks.
Water Resource Management will utilize the volunteer monitors from SOS.
“There’s only three employees in the watershed division in water resource management, and we understand that we can only cover so much ground, and, by utilizing the volunteers at SOS, they’re able to utilize their own labs,” said Dan Ballard, watershed division manager. “They’re able to run analysis much cheaper than we are.”
Ballard said, as opposed to water resource management having to monitor 50 sites, they can now narrow down their monitoring to a certain area they know they need to concentrate on by utilizing the data from SOS to help prioritize where they need to conduct monitoring to identify the sources.
The Water Resource Management Department is required to monitor the water quality of the impaired waterways within the city, including the Saugahatchee Creek, Parkerson Mill Creek and Moore’s Mill Creek.
They monitor these creeks for E. coli, siltation and other pollutants.
Ballard said this is the first time they have been providing financial support for the monitoring.
“The volunteers simply provide the monitoring,” Ballard said. “They have stations which they monitor, and then they provide us with that monitoring data. We’ll take their data and decipher their data to help us prioritize which areas we need to focus on.”
The partnership also includes Opelika and the Lee County Highway Department. These partners contributed monetarily to the effort.
“Contributing to SOS, who through their efforts in monitoring the water, helps assure that we’ve got some more eyes on the water in the county,” said Joey Hundley with the Lee County Highway Department. “If there’s issues with water quality along the Saugahatchee, then the monitoring will help bring that to the forefront, and we can address the problem in the areas that there may be a problem.”
Eric Reutebuch, director of Alabama Water Watch and member of SOS, said concerned citizens formed SOS in 1997 to address some of the environmental problems in the Saugahatchee watershed and the Saugahatchee Creek.
Today, there are approximately 100 members. Of those 100 members, Reutebuch said approximately a dozen of them are water quality monitors.
Alabama Water Watch is a statewide program that works with approximately 60 or 70 groups in the state, of which SOS is one.
“The Alabama Water Watch program supports volunteer monitoring, water monitoring by providing training in water chemistry and bacteriological monitoring and stream biomonitoring,” Reutebuch said.
They provide free training via workshops. On April 10-11, anyone from the community can receive training in bacteriological certification monitoring and water chemistry. The building is located on Auburn University’s campus.
“It’s a statewide program training volunteers to monitor their water quality and also teaching them how to use that data in a productive way to protect the water and restore their water quality in their local watersheds,” Reutebuch said.
Do you like this story? The Plainsman doesn't accept money from tuition or student fees, and we don't charge a subscription fee. But you can donate to support The Plainsman.
