1. “Our mission is to educate and provide
opportunities for people of diverse
interests to work together to improve
the environmental, recreational,
cultural, and economic resources of the
Rock River Basin.”
Nancy Sheehan,
Volunteer Stream Monitoring Coordinator
Rock River Coalition

2. WHERE IS THE ROCK
RIVER BASIN?
Covers ~ 11 counties
Home to 900,000
 2,325 stream miles
 150 lakes and
storm water
pounds

3. WHAT DOES THE ROCK RIVER
COALITION DO?
Citizen Stream Monitoring Program
Citizen Wetland Monitoring Program
Wisconsin Shoreland Restoration
Initiative
Events – Send Your Legislator Down the
River
Partnering with Local Resource
Organization

4. HOW HEALTHY
ARE THE
WATERS?
62 water bodies
do not meet
federal standards
for phosphorus and
total suspended
solids

5. YAHARA RIVER
WATERSHED
?? water bodies
do not meet
federal standards
for phosphorus and
total suspended
solids

6. WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR
IMPROVING WATER QUALITY?

7. A New Compliance
Option-“Adaptive
Management”
Yahara WINs
A watershed-based,
collaborative
approach to meeting
in-stream
phosphorus
standards

8. AND HOW DO WE
KNOW IF WE ARE
SUCCEEDING?
By Monitoring
 4 USGS stations
 MMSD Regular Nutrient
Sampling
 Edge of Field Monitoring
 UW Student-Led
Monitoring
 WDNR
 Citizen Water Quality
Monitoring

10. CITIZEN STREAM
MONITOIRNG
PROGRAM
 10 years+
 Grounded in science
 Rooted in partnership

11. WATER ACTION VOLUNTEERS PROGRAM
…79 volunteer monitored sites within the Rock River Basin
…Over 200 volunteer monitored sites state-wide
Level 3
Special Research Studies: E
coli, crayfish, phosphorus, road
salt
LEVEL 2
continuous temperature,
dissolved oxygen,
transparency
LEVEL 1
temperature, dissolved
oxygen, transparency,
Biotic Index, Flow, Habitat

12. POWERED BY VOLUNTEERS

13. Rock River Coalition –
Yahara WINs:
2013 Volunteer Stream
Monitoring Project
23 new
WQ monitoring sites

14. 7 New Sites
Nutrient Sampling
(Level 3)
Volunteers collected water
samples once a month from
May to October
Samples were analyzed by
Madison Metropolitan
Sewerage District
total phosphorus,
total suspended solids
ortho-phosphorus
ammonia
nitrate
nitrite

15. 6 New Sites
Status and trends
(Level 2)
Volunteers monitored
once a month from May to
October
Continous temperature
disssolved oxygen
transparency

16. 10 New Sites
Baseline
Volunteers monitored
once a month from May
to October
temperature
dissolved oxygen
transparency
Biotic Index
flow

17. What happens in 2014
Depends
On You…