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April
2001 Newsletter
Watch
for Some W.A.T.E.R Flowing Your Way This Spring!
All
over North America, citizens concerned about the quality
of the water in their local lakes, rivers, and streams,
are taking the matter into their own hands. They are acquiring
the basic tools they need to go out and collect their own
water quality samples in order to confirm whether any problems
exist, and then to push for some action!
In
Hamilton, we have our very own innovative community water
quality monitoring program. W.A.T.E.R. or Watershed Action
Towards Environmental Responsibility was borne out of an
initiative started in the early 1990s by Dr. George Sorger
- a microbiologist at McMaster University. Through this
initiative, Dr. Sorger provides upper-year high school students
with the opportunity to learn the basic field and laboratory
skills needed to collect and analyze water samples from
local streams. Students participate in a training program
in Dr. Sorger's lab before heading into the field. They
learn how to measure water quality parameters such as pH,
dissolved oxygen, bacteria levels (coliform counts) general
toxicity, ammonia, phosphorus, and nitrate levels.
Once
the training period is over, students are ready to go out
and collect water samples from a local creek. It is at this
point that the educational benefits of the program begin
to expand. A critical element of the program is the requirement
that students establish citizen contacts in the communities
where the creek they will sample is located. Citizen contacts
are encouraged to direct students to any areas of concern
along their neighbourhood creek. These sites are incorporated
into the protocol of sampling locations established for
the entire creek. Community contacts are invited and encouraged
to accompany student monitors during the process of water
sample collection. Students then return to Dr. Sorger's
lab in order to carry out water sample analyses.
The
final element of the program is the community presentation.
Students analyze their water quality findings and prepare
a presentation organized at a time and location determined
by the community. Most often, presentations are incorporated
into the meetings of neighbourhood associations. At these
community meetings students provide explanations, in layperson's
terms, of the manner in which they have collected and analyzed
samples. They also explain how to interpret the data generated
by the analyses. Once this important background information
is provided, the students proceed to present the results
of their water quality monitoring within that neighbourhood's
creek and the implications of their work.
Through
their obligation to establish ties with community members,
students learn the importance of being socially responsible
scientists. Scientific experimentation is effectively combined
with a requirement to be accountable to the community through
a 'reporting back' process once results are available. Community
members become empowered through the program's provision
of knowledge in a manner which is understandable and meaningful
to them. Student presentations frequently make local residents
realize that they should be concerned about the health of
their neighbourhood creeks, and that they must be conscious
of the impact that they and others are having on the creeks.
Often these meetings serve as the spark that is needed for
communities to begin to explore what more they can do to
protect their local creeks.
Right
now, Friends of Red Hill Valley is enjoying the benefits
of the community-student partnership that has come to be
the hallmark of WATER. Friends of Red Hill has requested
that Dr. Sorger and his students investigate the storm sewers
that discharge into Red Hill Creek at both Queenston Road
and Melvin Avenue. Anyone familiar with these outfalls will
know that they discharge to the creek all of the time —
a situation which is cause for concern. The students will
collect samples of the continuous discharge and determine
whether it is contaminated in any way. After completing
their monitoring project, the students will be presenting
their findings at the upcoming Friends of Red Hill Valley
annual general meeting this May 31.
We
encourage you to come out to hear the results of this important
water quality testing project!
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