Late last year a new stream monitoring group was formed by the Sno-King Watershed Council (http://snokingwatershedcouncil.org/water-watchers ) to coordinate and intensify water quality efforts on streams in north King and south Snohomish counties.  This work is supported by grants from King County Waterworks and the Rose Foundation to help cover the costs of materials, supplies and training.

We were approached about being a part of this group, and said “Yes!” We are still LFP Streamkeepers, but have now adopted new monitoring procedures and equipment (provided by the City of Lake Forest Park), and will be reporting our testing results for inclusion in a broader data base along with data from a number of other area streams.

We still monitor dissolved oxygen, pH and temperature, although using new equipment that allows for more accurate and reliable results. In addition, we’ve added several additional water quality parameters: turbidity, hardness, alkalinity and coliform bacteria.

Inspiration for the formation of the Water Watchers program came largely from another organization, Global Water Watch, based at Auburn University in Alabama. GWW supports river and lake monitoring programs throughout North America as well as in Central and South America, with plans to expand to other parts of the world. For more information on GWW: http://www.globalwaterwatch.org