Equipment Research - Basic Water Quality Monitoring in Hooffs Run

 

Hooffs Run Bridge (Jamison Ave) in Old Town Alexandria, looking north. 

I decided to research watershed monitoring equipment that could be used by ‘citizen scientists’ within the Hooffs Run watershed. This could be done for personal interest, or more ideally, as part of a watershed wide effort by residents to collect and analyze information relating to water quality.

Data collected by individuals could be aggregated to form a better picture of overall water quality with the watershed. Perhaps it could also be compared against results in the other watersheds within the City of Alexandria. 

A good monitoring kit for citizen science efforts is the LaMotte Low Cost Water Monitoring Kit. The kit is compact and is relatively cheap at US$43.75 on the LaMotte website. This kit seems to be a market leader in the low cost segment, and allows for the testing of eight different factors: 

  • Ph
  • Dissolved Oxygen
  • BOD
  • Nitrate
  • Phosphate
  • Temperature
  • Turbidity
  • Coliform Screening 

Source: LaMotte Website

A short instructional video on how to use the kit can be found on YouTube through this link. The kit receives positive reviews due to its small size and ease of use, however, it is regarded as a 'basic' device. Nonetheless, it could be used to take samples in the following highlighted areas of the Hooffs Run watershed:

Source: Google Maps

The area marked above is publically accessible and could be used to extract water samples from the Hooffs Run stream. It is located just south of Jamison Ave and the Hooffs Run Bridge. The area below is in the Del Ray residential area, and is also a suitable collection point. However, this is not an above surface stream and water could only be collected after heavy rain or flooding. 



Source: Google Maps

The EPA Handbook for Citizen Science Quality Assurance and Documentation provides a good resource for general information on taking samples and managing data, and this could be used by citizen scientists to guide their efforts. 

Data sourced within the Hooffs Run watershed could be provided to the Chesapeake Monitoring Cooperative (CMC). The CMC aggregates water quality data from a number of organizations in order to better understand the Chesapeake Bay watershed. As of December 2020, over 100 different organizations provide data to the CMC which is uploaded on their website. The data is then used to create a map indicating water quality throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

A ‘Hooffs Run Watershed monitoring’ community group could be formed and registered with the CMC in order to take part in this process. Alternatively, the Environmental Council of Alexandria (ECA) is a good candidate to lead this effort. As profiled in week 8 (Watershed Organizational Research), the ECA is a small volunteer organization currently focused on the Taylor Run stream restoration. 

The ECA chair has indicated an interest in supporting broader conservation efforts within the City of Alexandria, and water quality monitoring could be a useful undertaking. However, this would of course require someone to volunteer on a consistent basis to support this effort and to upload data to the CMC website.   


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