CAN AMATEURS CONTRIBUTE TO SCIENCE?

CreekWatch volunteers visited creeks throughout the season, taking measurements for temperature, turbidity, chloride and phosphorus levels.

CreekWatch also had a trained technician visit once a week, repeating similar tests and measuring E. coli, salinity and dissolved oxygen. Finally, they sent one water sample per creek to a lab. The results came back similar, said Reed Froklage, citizen science co-ordinator with CreekWatch.

“We let volunteers use these science tools to find out for themselves what the water quality is like,” he said. He’s hoping to expand to more creeks with more groups of volunteers this year.