A Big Thank You to Our Biomonitoring Volunteers!

MountainTrue wants to thank all the dedicated volunteers who have helped make this another successful year for our biomonitoring programing. Our nine teams of volunteers sampled 21 sites throughout Henderson County, and you can expect the results of this testing in the coming weeks.

Biomonitoring, or biological monitoring, involves sampling and identifying aquatic macroinvertebrates, including insects, snails, worms, mussels, clams and crustaceans. Macroinvertebrates are sensitive to pollution such as sediment, excess nutrients and various chemicals. The diversity, health and abundance of macroinvertebrates found in a stream is a strong indicator of water quality over a period of time and can give a general idea of what may be polluting a stream.

“Using benthic macroinvertebrates to monitor stream health is very effective because the bugs we collect have been living in the stream for several months and provide an indication of the conditions in the stream over an extended period of time,” explains biomonitoring volunteer Jim Czarnezki who is a retired expert in the field. “By looking at the presence or absence of sensitive species, we can determine if a pollution event occurred even if we cannot determine what the specific pollutant was.”

Our biomonitoring program is part of our ongoing effort to monitor water quality throughout the Henderson County. This MountainTrue program is part of the larger SMIE or Stream Monitoring Information Exchange – a regional program managed by the Environmental Quality Institute to determine the health of streams and provide high-quality data. The data is compiled by EQI into an annual report, which are published on our website here: http://mountaintrue.org/water-quality-committee/

MountainTrue collects samples bi-annually during the months of October and April.  The majority of our volunteers are people who live and work in Henderson County. Some are retirees. Some are working professionals. Others are students at Warren Wilson, UNCA and Blue Ridge Community College. All have a deep commitment to clean waters and healthy ecosystems.

“Biomonitoring streams is a great way to really see life in streams. It is amazing how many little creatures are in a sample of water, under rocks or in a leaf pile,” says Dorothee Kellinghuse, a student at Warren Wilson. “As a person who loves nature with all its creatures and beauty, it is my goal to preserve and protect the habitat of which I am a part.”