Vol. 2, No. 4 Contents Headline Back Issues Fall 1998
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Volunteer groups wading deeper into coastal water quality issues Editor Gulf of Maine Seeking funding, credibility, and volunteers, coastal water quality monitoring groups in the region are perfecting their technique, as well as branching out beyond the basics to toxic algae, habitat assessment, and other specialties.
Data collected on water samples vary slightly from one group to another according to each group's particular concerns, but most often include weather conditions at the time the water sample is collected; temperature; salinity; the plant pigment chlorophyll; bacteria such as fecal coliform and E-coli; dissolved oxygen; alkalinity and acidity; and water clarity, or turbidity. Threats to coastal water quality vary somewhat within the Gulf region and, as a result, monitoring groups differ in their specific concerns, which can range from nonpoint sources such as leaky septic systems to point discharges of sewage and other effluents. Many groups are concerned about fecal coliform and other bacteria, which can contaminate shellfish beds and clam flats. Some groups are looking for toxic phytoplankton microscopic algae that can cause paralytic shellfish poisoning, resulting in illness or death in humans. Others have begun to incorporate chemical compounds and nutrients into their testing protocols. Group organizers say that funding sources and strategies also differ somewhat among these groups, as do relationships with government agencies. The differences are partly related to whether the group is located in the US or in Canada. Add to all of these factors the distinct personality of each group, and generalizations become risky. What these groups do have in common is an interest in knowing what is affecting their coastal waters. With the support of regional organizations that help them coordinate their resources via workshops, newsletters, web pages, conference calls, and electronic mail, they trade information on subjects from sampling techniques to organizational issues such as volunteer recruitment, public outreach, and growth. Networks support volunteers Coordinating much of this information-sharing is the Coastal Network of the Gulf of Maine, a loose affiliation of grassroots groups, government agencies, and other interested parties working (with financial support from the Gulf of Maine Council and other funding sources) to help coastal water quality monitoring groups undertake and promote their work. Former interim facilitator Rob Rainer said the network hopes to develop personnel exchanges among groups and government agencies so they can share expertise. The network also wants to help the groups use the Internet to promote their work and share their data. Other support systems are also in place or are developing around the Gulf for coastal water quality monitoring groups. Massachusetts provides technical and financial support through several programs that address watershed issues, including a grant program that provides $250,000 a year to volunteer monitoring programs statewide. Serving as a clearinghouse for 20 water quality monitoring groups in Maine, the University of Maine Cooperative Extension offers training materials, workshops, and technical and organizational backing, said Esperanza Stancioff, Director of the Clean Water Program for Extension. "The ownership and impetus and energy is at the local level. We just provide support," she said. Extension and the Maine Coastal Program at the State Planning Office collaborate under the name Clean Water/Partners in Monitoring to co-sponsor an annual monitoring fair for Maine and New Hampshire that Stancioff said is attracting a Gulf-wide audience. The State Planning Office also publishes Ripple Effect, a newsletter for monitoring groups. And the state's Partners in Monitoring program allies local high schools, conservation commissions, land trusts, river watershed associations, and other community groups on water quality issues. The University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension also supports volunteer monitoring, offering workshops and training, and facilitating partnerships with research organizations, according to Extension Specialist Jeff Schloss and Ann Reid, Coordinator of the citizen monitoring group, Great Bay Watch, for the UNH extension. But organizers of support systems say groups working in the field need even more help. "We can't offer the amount of technical assistance we'd like to," said Kathleen Leyden, Policy Development Specialist at the Maine State Planning Office. "We really need to ante up with the resources on the state level and provide better support and technical assistance to these groups. There's only so far you can stretch volunteer capacity." Funding and other challenges While coastal water quality monitoring groups on both sides of the border patch together funds from similar sources government, foundation, and corporate several organizers pointed out that, in the US, more money is distributed. This is partly because there are larger, more numerous, and more established funding sources, and partly because citizens groups have been part of the environmental landscape for a longer period of time. Rainer noted that Canada's smaller population has kept water quality problems on a smaller growth scale than in the US, and, as a result, fewer groups have formed in Canada to address such issues. Canada's Atlantic Coastal Action Program (ACAP) provides seed money for community-based environmental groups. But organizers of these groups including the Clean Annapolis River Project (CARP) in Nova Scotia, and ACAP-Saint John and Eastern Charlotte Waterways in New Brunswick note that they have to seek most of their funds elsewhere. The federal ACAP program does, however, facilitate substantial in-kind and technical support from government agencies, said CARP Program Director Steve Hawboldt. The Gulf of Maine Council, comprising US and Canadian members, has provided more than $100,000 to volunteer water quality monitoring efforts throughout the Gulf over a three-year period, supporting their work because it supports the Council's own goals to protect and restore coastal and marine resources, including shellfish habitats. Friends of Casco Bay (FOCB), based in South Portland, Maine, was similarly able to "piggyback" onto the Casco Bay Estuary Project' s action plan, said FOCB Citizen Stewards Coordinator Peter Milholland. The estuary project is a "large, ongoing funder" for FOCB, which, in return, provides the long-term monitoring called for in the estuary project's plan, he said. Coastal water quality monitoring groups also say funding sources are attracted to groups that are known and supported in their local communities. Stancioff said success stories, such as the opening of "thousands of acres of clam flats" in Maine that have been found, through monitoring, to be clean, also tend to encourage financial support. "Funders are more likely to give more funding if they see an overall sense of purpose and direction and strategy and progression," added Lissa Widoff, Project Director at the Maine Community Foundation and the founder and original facilitator of the Coastal Network of the Gulf of Maine. Even so, said Hawboldt, "For groups like ourselves I would argue that money is not the limiting factor, the limiting factor is how creatively you can think." Groups need only a few hundred to a few thousand dollars a year to support actual monitoring activities, say some organizers. "Finding and keeping volunteers who are consistently interested and excited about their work," presents more of a challenge to coastal water quality monitoring groups, Leyden asserted, emphasizing their importance by noting, "The only data that exists for some of these embayments is data that's volunteer generated." Stating that, "Some volunteers have been with us since our pilot project seven years ago," Milholland credits that longevity to the FOCB program's flexibility. Volunteer monitoring group organizers say letting volunteers learn and do more also keeps them interested. Phytoplankton program grows To appeal to volunteers' interest in specializing, and to help Maine address its concerns about toxic algae, the University of Maine Cooperative Extension and the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) developed the Maine Phytoplankton Monitoring Program. The program has about 80 volunteers and is continuing to grow, said Coordinator Wendy Norden. "You know what I think really makes this program, is that the data is used right away," she said, noting that water sample analyses are faxed to DMR to be entered in the database the day they are collected. "It's an exciting field. They're adding a lot to the scientific community," Norden said of the volunteers involved in the program. "We would like to see [the program] grow by a couple of groups each year," said Paul Anderson, Director of DMR's Public Health Division. "We've been trying to get the aquaculture industry involved in this some of these toxic algae can wreak havoc in aquaculture. Some have been known to kill finfish, and then there are the obvious health problems with shellfish," he said. Earlier this year, the Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund provided a grant to hire Norden as full-time coordinator. Funding for the program has also come from the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and the US Food and Drug Administration. DMR provides in-kind resources, as do other agencies, such as Extension. Stancioff believes that DMR's use of volunteers in its water quality monitoring programs and regulation of shellfish resources shows that data produced by volunteer monitoring groups is "gaining respect" in the scientific community. Anderson said he is confident in the ability of properly trained volunteers to produce accurate data that DMR can use to classify shellfish growing areas. "We can train a quality volunteer to do as good or even better work than many scientists would want to admit," he said, noting that using volunteers allows agency staff to work on other projects that do require more specialized expertise. "There are some checks and balances in the system but the end result is we're making better use of the government's money by having volunteers contribute some of the effort," Anderson said. In pursuit of credibility, some US water quality monitoring groups are implementing the US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Quality Assurance Program Plan (QAPP), a quality control program. "Once you have that approval, the data can be used by other state, federal, and local agencies for evaluating the health of the bay," said Milholland, noting that FOCB has been operating under an EPA QAPP for six years. Stancioff said Extension has been working with four groups to develop QAPPs using an EPA-approved template. Other new directions The possibilities for expansion in volunteer coastal water quality monitoring are countless, according to Stancioff. "There are so many things out there that could be done that volunteers can assist with." Monitoring of intertidal habitat, eelgrass habitat, biological monitoring, monitoring toxic substances in stormwater runoff, pursuing the sources of contamination, and developing more aggressive public education campaigns are among the new directions being considered or pursued by volunteer coastal water quality monitoring groups throughout the Gulf. But traditional monitoring remains in high demand. "Scientists, researchers, and agency biologists can't be in all of these places at the same time," said Stancioff, noting that data collected by volunteers "can enhance current monitoring efforts and can also identify areas that researchers can concentrate their efforts on." Just as importantly, she said, through volunteer monitoring, "People are becoming engaged and becoming stewards of their own environment and solving their own problems." |
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Almost all of the approximately 30 major watersheds that feed the Gulf of Maine have at least one coastal water quality monitoring group. Their diverse members homemakers, retirees, working people, students, parents, scientists, and others comprise the Saturday morning brigades that troop down to coastal waters to collect samples once or twice a month.