Recent Raritan Headwaters Association Stream Cleanup, some of the Drake's Brook crew.
Here's an article I had published in my Recorder Newspapers column earlier this year. Thought it appropriate to post after the recent stream cleanup.
Raritan
Headwaters Association State of Our Watershed Conference
“Without an incredible cadre of
volunteers, this program doesn’t work,” said Bill Kibler, Director of Policy
and Science, Raritan Headwaters Association. He referred to the Stream
Monitoring Program, an ongoing 20-year effort as of 2014. Originally carried
out separately by South Branch Watershed Association and Upper Raritan
Watershed Association, the two organizations merged in 2011 as Raritan
Headwaters Association. The metrics for river health are based on collected
macroinvertebrates. This surprised me while attending the State of Our
Watershed Conference December 6, 2014 at Gill St. Bernard’s School, Gladstone.
Chemical assessment of water samples isn’t the procedure.
Aquatic insect species are sensitive to
pollution. Benthic organisms are bottom dwelling, and macroinvertebrates of
this description may include various kinds of worms and crustaceans, but the
presence—or lack—of three families of insects determine water quality by a
complicated calculation. Ephemeroptera (mayflies), Plecoptera (stoneflies) and
Trichoptera (caddisflies) are designated together as EPT, the signifying benthic
macroinvertebrates sensitive to pollution. If a variety of EPT larvae are
present in a stream sample, water quality is non-impaired.
Between June 15th and June
30th each year, volunteers use dip nets. Procedures have varied
slightly over the years, but each of 56 sites sampled one riffle apiece in
2014. In addition to the North and South branches of the Raritan, tributary and
headwaters samples create a vision of the whole watershed. South Branch
headwaters and tributaries tested include Ledgewood Brook, Drake’s Brook,
Flanders Brook, Mulhockaway Creek, Beaver Brook, Neshanic River, Back Brook,
Pleasant Run and Holland Brook. In relation to the North Branch: Burnett Brook,
Peapack Brook, Black River, Tanners Brook, Herzog Brook, Cold Brook, Rockaway
Creek (confluence with Lamington River and North Branch Raritan in turn) and
Chambers Brook. 71.9% of the 56 sites scored non-impaired, 26.3% moderately
impaired. No scores indicated severe impairment to sound alarm, although Ledgewood
Brook’s moderately impaired status raises particular concern.
Angela Gorczyca, Water Quality
Program Manager, pointed out that with recent activity at Fennimore Landfill
upstream of the testing site in Roxbury Township, Ledgewood Brook’s score has
fallen. “We did find that in 2007 the DEP collected data. They found that this
stream was non-impaired,” she said. “Headwaters streams are usually perfect
scores.”
All testing sites are rated from
0-30. Drake’s Brook Site 1 tested perfect at 30, most other sites above 24. Scores
fall off below this number to moderately impaired levels. By contrast to the
Drake’s Brook site downstream, the Ledgewood Brook site scored 18.
Another place of concern was a North
Branch Raritan River site behind the ball fields at Miller Lane. “There really
was a loss of balance in the invertebrate community. 60% was just scuds,” said
Gorczyca. Scuds are small freshwater shrimp resistant to pollution. The site
scored an uninspiring 12.
Gorczyca mentioned the Mine brook
tributary just upstream as a possible source of trouble. “We’re going to be
monitoring the Mine Brook,” she said. Referring to a computer projected map,
she pointed out a “sharp contrast between North and South branches.”
Non-impaired sites appeared as blue dots on the map, while moderately impaired
appeared in yellow. Only one of five North Branch sites scored unimpaired at 27,
site 3 well above Ravine Lake in Bernards and downstream of the little
tributary from private Pleasant Valley Lake. Here the highest diversity of
caddis and mayfly collected in the net, but fewer stoneflies. A site further
upstream, yet below the India Brook confluence, scored 21.
The South Branch, on the other hand,
showed blue dots all the way down into Hillsborough
Township, 17 of 18
sites non-impaired, the only exception a new site in close proximity to Budd
Lake.
Stream monitoring is a precise
practice with the intent to identify the source and severity of any impairment,
observe water quality trends due to land use changes, see the impacts of
development and associated remediation projects as well as gauge any further
restoration efforts. Our Upper Raritan watershed gets this attention not only
because testing may be an indication for groundwater issues pertaining to
drinking water, nor only because some people care about the fishery, but
because people care about rivers. To the planet as a whole, they’re like the
arteries and veins in our bodies, and without them, the planet could no
longer sustain life. Yet deeper value than practical is at stake; if life has
any meaning, purpose flows to an end. Rivers make us happy, whether we fish, swim or just sit by them.
Raritan Headwaters Association needs
volunteers. Just access their website and sign on to enjoy an interesting time
monitoring a flow in June.
http://www.raritanheadwaters.org/
http://www.raritanheadwaters.org/
My family liked to tease me about my 'picking up litter' activities by carefully placing cans on rocks. It's still a satisfying activity for some reason. I don't find it demeaning picking up after slobs, I just find it satisfying that a pretty spot looks better after I have been there. ;)
ReplyDeleteIt is satisfying. Once upon a time we gathered stuff from woods & the like...that's still with us.
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