Watershed Action
DNR Water Testing Certification
Several Watershed Watchers have participated in classes to receive DNR certification to test the waters of rivers and streams in the area. If water quality is monitored on a regular basis in the local streams and rivers, we can determine where the pollution problems exist. The data collected include: flow rate of the stream, turbidity, dissolved oxygen tests, and the presence of aquatic communities. Participants adopt a portion of a stream, creek, or river to monitor each month and have found it a rewarding experience. Many hours are spent in hip waders exploring the rivers and streams.
There are three levels of training and Level 1 is open to volunteers for training in the spring. If you are interested and want more information, click here.
Ephemeral Pools
Some members of Watershed Watchers (also members of Riveredge Nature Center) joined a one day a week, four-week course offered by Riveredge on identifying ephemeral pools in southeastern Wisconsin. The course combined classroom education with field work in the afternoon. The 16 class members visited a different pool each week and applied new knowledge through various tests to classify whether the water are was just a pond or an ephemeral pool.
Click here for a picture of an ephemeral pool.
The tests included measuring the site with a GPS (Global Positioning Satellite), identifying the habitat surrounding the pool, identifying all of the aquatic life, measuring the temperature of the water and positioning a temperature recording monitor in the pool. The temperature monitor will stay in the pool until the pool dries up. The process is detailed, extremely interesting and important and will continue monthly for three years or longer.
A few valuable and beautiful ephemeral pools are still left in southeastern Wisconsin. Through the monthly monitoring, the goal is to protect and preserve the pools and report any changes. The picture is an ephemeral pool in peril because of the airport expansion project.
Lake Sturgeon Released in Milwaukee River
Two members of Watershed Watchers and Riveredge have had the good fortune of being volunteers for a very exciting event. Riveredge Nature Center has been working with the DNR on a Lake Sturgeon project. The purpose of the project was to imprint the Milwaukee River in the Riveredge area on a the fry (newly hatched fish). The imprint is accomplished by pumping the river water directly into the fry tanks after filtering. The DNR provided a trailer equipped with tanks, oxygen, and all of the amenities for a young fry to grow and survive. Many kind and loving volunteers spent numerous hours cleaning the tanks, backwashing the sand filters to clean them, and feeding the fish. Pounds and pounds and pounds of blood worms and krill are fed to the hungry fish through automatic feeders. The fry were eggs when they arrived and are now about eight inches long.
The young sturgeon thrived on the filtered Milwaukee River at Riveredge, but now they will have to adjust to many obstacles in Lake Michigan. In 25 years the females will follow the instinct imprint of the river upstream to spawn at their original location at Riveredge.
Tracking devices, implanted into several sturgeon, allow trackers to follow the sturgeons' adventures. To ensure a clean river so more kinds of fish can be introduced into the Milwaukee River with guarantees of high survival rates, Watershed Watchers will continue testing the local river water.
Earth Day occurs every year on April 22
Watch for time and place to celebrate our earth as Gaylord Nelson envisioned it in his book, Beyond Earth Day, Fulfilling the Promise. April 22, 1970, he said Earth Day was a day to "inspire a public demonstration so big it would shake the political establishment out of its lethargy and force the environmental issue onto the national agenda."