Watershed Volunteer Monitoring Program

The watershed partners are forming a group of volunteers to being a mapping and stream quality assessment of the land drained by Lye Creek. The team will be trained to observe and record the condition of the water flow, the characteristics of the stream bed, the appearance and conditions of the bank, the location of drainage pipes and tiles emptying into the creek along with the location of log jams, silt islands, debris piles and any other visual pollution.

 The second phase of the project is to identify locations along Lye Creek for a volunteer water quality-monitoring project to establish a current water quality conditions as a base line for Lye Creek and the Blanchard River.  This data will collection will be an ongoing project to enable us to recognize changes in water quality over time and access the effects of changes in land use activities.

Phase three of the teams objective is to write a water quality action plan that will be used to seek funding for projects to assist communities and landowners to improve conditions along the waterways and improve the value of the rivers and streams for all our citizens.

 The first volunteer training session will be held in April with the mapping project scheduled to start in early May 2007. Everyone in the community is invited to be trained, find out what we are planning to do and sign on for the parts of the project they are willing to work on. For more information call stream floe committee chairman, Phil Martin at 419-422-6487 or contact using the link on this site chair@blanchardriver.com.