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MWC 2005 SPONSORS
U.S. Geological Survey . Senator George J. Mitchell Center . Maine DHS / Drinking Water Program . Portland Water District . Aqua Maine . Maine Coastal Program / State Planning Office . Maine Dept. of Environmental Protection . Maine Geological Survey . Maine Rural Water Association . Maine Wastewater Control Association . Maine Water Utilities Association . Maine Congress of Lake Associations . Maine Volunteer Lake Monitoring Program . Maine Rivers . University of Maine Cooperative Extension . Maine Sea Grant
Connecting the Data
Co-Chairs: Peter Vaux (Mitchell Center), Greg Stewart (USGS)
Barbara S. Arter
BSA Environmental Research and Planning, Steuben, ME, 207/546-2018, bsarter@panax.com
Salmon River Water Quality Planning Initiative: Lessons Learned From Multi-Agency Data Sharing and Problem Solving
In May 2003, a multi-agency taskforce met to begin development of a comprehensive, ecosystem-based plan addressing water quality monitoring activities and water quality trends in the Sheepscot River Watershed. This yearlong process, and the resulting plan, were the first of its kind in the state and as such, represent a unique opportunity to identify, document, and address what works and what doesn't work for intra-agency water quality data sharing and planning.
The Sheepscot River Water Quality Monitoring Plan (SRWQMP) reviews WQM history, identifies water quality trends, and suggests 50 recommendations for new WQ studies, parameters, locations, agency coordination, and most importantly, agency administration in the Sheepscot River Watershed. The plan and its recommendations were created by the SRWQMP workgroup, which was comprised of representatives from all of the state and federal agencies and conservation organizations monitoring in the watershed. It is the prototype for the upcoming Narraguagus WQM Plan expected to be completed in fall of 2005.
Over this two-year planning period, many concerns were raised; some were resolved, and some were not. This presentation will review these very timely issues: how to creatively fund implementation, what is the structure for administering the plan, who will have oversight, how do we maintain the plan as a living document, how do we evaluate the plan's effectiveness, can the goals for individual agencies mesh with those of conservation organizations, how do we resolve the data sharing/data storage issue, and is the process really more important than the product?
Mary Ann McGarry
Director of Education, Maine Lakes Conservancy Institute; Professor, Center For The Environment, Plymouth State University, Plymouth NH, 603/535-3209, mmcgarry@umit.maine.edu
Stewardship Education in the Internet Age: Connecting Students with Data
Maine Lakes Conservancy Institute currently has 10 partner schools who participate in MLCI Students' Portal website www.mlci.org. The Students' Portal has won international attention after being featured on the George Lucas Educational Foundation website as an innovative model of effectively connecting students with technology. In a project based fashion, students research information, including data from http://pearl.maine.edu about the lakes in their community and then post their work directly, via their school's password, on the Students' Portal portion of the MLCI website. Each academic year, MLCI staff help teachers and their students focus their lake investigations for populating the various icons on the Students' Portal. The current 2004-2005 initiative involves students addressing aquatic invasive species. One particular activity involves students illustrating the impact a potential invasion of Eurasian milfoil could have on their lake, by creating a map which will be posted on their school's site. The map will show the extent of a hypothetical invasion based on the depth at which the plant can grow. During school visits, the MLCI staff and students will also explore the potential for a zebra mussel invasion and issues associated with illegal stocking of fish - an active, current educational campaign launched by Maine's Dept. of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. The best possible assessment of the project will be if students become motivated to participate locally in the volunteer boat inspection programs directed by the Maine Volunteer Lake Monitoring Program and similar initiatives hosted in their community. The presentation will provide a progress report on the invasives project.
Beth Connors
Biomonitoring Unit, Maine Dept. of Environmental Protection, Portland ME, 207/822-6399, beth.connors@maine.gov
CREATING AN INTERNET MAPPING PROJECT FOR BIOMONITORING DATA
The Biomonitoring Program of the Maine Department of Environmental Protection has been collecting biological, chemical and physical data from rivers and streams since 1983 and from wetlands since 1998. This program provides water quality information for a variety of programs and assesses the resident biological communities found in each resource to evaluate its overall health and track changes over time. Currently, the Biomonitoring Unit has established 768 river and stream sampling locations and 126 wetland sampling locations and has conducted over 1300 individual sampling events.
Increased desire for Biomonitoring data from various state and federal programs and the general public has facilitated the need to increase the accessibility of Biomonitoring sample locations and results. An Internet Mapping Project will move the Biomonitoring unit toward obtaining its goal of utilizing a comprehensive watershed perspective in collecting and interpreting data. Through a new software application, this project combines existing macroinvertebrate, algae, and water chemistry data for rivers, streams and wetlands into a common spatial format and displays it in a web-based platform. The user can utilize map or text based search functions to find an area of interest, select a sampling location and see the sampling results for that site. This enables the user to access local information about overall watershed conditions.
Michael Herz1 and Eli Asarian2
1Sheepscot Valley Conservation Association, Alna, ME, 207/586-5443, mherz@lincoln.midcoast.com
2Institute for Fisheries Resources, Arcata, CA, 707/822-9428 x2, eli@krisweb.com
Sheepscot River KRIS: A User-Friendly Database for Atlantic Salmon Habitat Protection and Restoration
This paper reports on the establishment of a unique database system designed to support the restoration of Atlantic salmon in the Sheepscot River, one of eight rivers in Maine on which salmon have been listed as an endangered species. Funding was obtained to create a community-based, fully-accessible, user-friendly, easily-updated, Internet compatible information system designed to make accessible for the science community and interested public alike the best, science-based explanation possible at this time concerning the factors that limit Atlantic salmon growth and survival in the Sheepscot River and the actions that must be taken to increase their numbers.
The project has assembled: 1) data tables and charts on fisheries, water quality and factors that may limit them; 2) watershed spatial information (GIS maps); 3) photos of aquatic and landscape conditions, restoration projects and historical subjects; 4) current and historical bibliographic resources into the PC-based computer program so that information can be shared quickly and easily among agencies, private land owners and citizens.
The final phase of this project utilizes information in the database to generate a list of factors that may limit Atlantic salmon production in the Sheepscot watershed and to develop testable hypotheses designed to identify those factors most responsible for limiting reproductive success, growth and survival as well as to make recommendations regarding priority restoration actions.
Sarah Kirn
Gulf of Maine Research Institute, Portland, ME, 207/772-2321, sarah@gmri.org
Vital Signs - G5-12 students gathering and sharing quantitative and qualitative observations of the Gulf of Maine Watershed
GMRI has developed software for handheld computers that guides middle and high school students in making accurate measurements and systematic observations of their local aquatic environments. Data from GPS receivers, digital cameras, quantitative probes, and general observations are collected in the field and sent via PC-based data management and vetting software to a GIS database with an online interface (www.gmamapping.org/vital_signs/Viewer.html). Goals of Vital Signs include: 1, increasing students' observation abilities; 2, giving students experience with scientific research and technology; 3, raising awareness of our impacts and dependence on the watershed health; and 4, gathering a time-series of observations of the Gulf of Maine Watershed.
For four years we have worked with middle and high schools in the Maine communities of: Perry, Deer Isle, Millinocket, Rangeley, Portland, and Berwick and natural science education centers in Holderness and Rye, New Hampshire. Participating teachers are very interested in researchers using the data their students collect. We are currently seeking research programs in which Vital Signs students could serve as data collectors, such as monitoring programs for aquatic invasive species and other research efforts requiring large numbers of observations from diverse locations. We are also exploring ways to enable the participation of more students, particularly Maine's 37,000 7th and 8th graders using iBook computers.
Vital Signs has tremendous potential to raise awareness of the Gulf of Maine Watershed and aquatic science. Vital Signs has equal potential as a scientific data collection program. The GMRI seeks alliances with potential research partners to further its mission.
Pete Steeves and Kernell Ries
U.S. Geological Survey, Northborough, MA
Streamstats: A U.S. Geological Survey Web Site for Streamflow Statistics and Watershed Analysis
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has developed a Web application, named StreamStats, that connects users to hydrologic information they need to make engineering, management, planning, and regulatory decisions. The application provides simple methods for computing streamflow statistics for streams with and without stream-gaging stations. StreamStats can provide drainage area; streamflow statistics such as the 100-year flood, used to design bridges and to regulate development in flood-prone areas; and the 7-day, 10-year low flow, used to regulate pollutant discharges and to assure minimum streamflow for aquatic organisms. StreamStats also can generate a watershed boundary map, calculate the size of the watershed, and measure various watershed characteristics such as channel length or percent of forest cover.
StreamStats is currently being piloted in Idaho and Vermont. Users can click on the locations of USGS data-collection (streamgaging) stations on a map that appears in their Web browser window to obtain previously published streamflow statistics, basin characteristics, and descriptive information for the data-collection stations. Users also can click on sites without stream-gaging stations and obtain streamflow statistics and basin characteristics for these sites. When one of these sites is selected, the coordinates for it are sent to a computer server running a Geographic Information System (GIS) application that determines the drainage-basin boundary and measures the watershed characteristics for the site. StreamStats then inputs the numerical values of the measured watershed characteristics into USGS-developed regression equations to deliver estimates of streamflow statistics for the site.
The GIS database developed for StreamStats integrates a digital stream network with a digital surface elevation dataset. This database can be used to navigate a stream network for upstream and downstream flow relationships and to determine channel slope and other elevation derived values such as basin slope. The GIS database gives engineers, managers, and planners an unprecedented tool to estimate and analyze streamflow in a timely manner, and could potentially be used for any number of water resources projects. |
