Monitoring During the Drought

Low flows abound in Virginia this Fall.  I don’t know about you, but I keep checking the forecast looking for any chance of rain…but there is none in sight!

Please plan to monitor your site as you normally would.  If there is not enough water to conduct a sampling session, please fill out the first page of the field data sheets and submit this information to your regional coordinator, VA SOS, or into the online database.  If there is enough water to conduct a sampling session, but the drought is obviously affecting water levels (low water levels), please write in the weather past 72 hours section that we are experiencing a drought.  This type of information will provide good historical information and will allow data users to better evaluate the conditions of your monitoring site.

New Initiatives

VA SOS has always located monitoring sites based upon local needs, wishes, and access.  Starting this spring, VA SOS will be adding some new sites into our monitoring program that are “clean” streams and have been monitored in the past by some organization (usually VA DEQ or a university) but are not currently being monitored.  If you are interested in monitoring one of these streams and don’t mind traveling, please contact Stacey Brown at 804-615-5036 or via e-mail.

VA SOS will also be working with regional DEQ offices to locate impaired waters that need follow up monitoring where volunteer water quality data could be helpful.  If you are interested in participating in this activity, please contact Stacey Brown (contact information above).

Funding Reductions

As most of you know the DEQ Citizen Monitoring Grant program was cut in the Governor's Budget Reduction Plan.  VA SOS has come to rely on this program for annual support.  We hope to be able to fill this funding void with new sources of funding.  Please let Stacey know if you are familiar with a family foundation or other grant program that might be a good fit for the VA SOS program.  Also, a general letter of support for VA SOS and our water quality monitoring activities in Virginia from your organization would be extremely helpful as we pursue other sources of funding. Please let me know if you can provide such a support letter.  Thanks so much!

Tools You Can Use

Check out the VA SOS website: www.vasos.org/outreachtools.htm for some community outreach tools.  Please note, that several are in draft form.  If you use the draft form and have suggestions for changes and improvements, please let Stacey know.  Also, if you have any outreach tools you would like to include in this list, please send Stacey the information.  Also, as several of these are large files, let Stacey know if you would like these tools on CD-ROM and she will send them to you.

Ever wish you could strut your stuff with apparel and bumper stickers with the Virginia Save Our Streams logo on it?  Now you can!  Check out our “store” at www.cafepress.com/vasos

If you don’t see the logo combination you are looking for, let me know and we can customize it for you!