It’s monitoring season!

The CMC team is partnering with the CBP, the Chesapeake Bay Trust, and EPA Wheeling Laboratories to start collection of lab analyzed family-level macroinvertebrate samples throughout the watershed. These samples will fill spatial gaps in the Chesapeake Stream Health Indicator. Working with the Wheeling Lab and subject matter experts, like Maryland Department of Natural Resources’ Stream Waders, the CMC team has developed a volunteer friendly sampling method. It provides step-by-step instructions for macroinvertebrate collection, cleaning, and preserving procedures for family-level identification. We are working with the Stream Health Workgroup to identify priority watersheds based on sample density and land use.

On Thursday, April 1, Liz Chudoba, Sophie Stern (Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay) and Stacey Heflin (Henricopolis SWCD) kicked off the benthic sampling season and tested out the protocol on a local Richmond stream, Horse Swamp Creek. We will continue to test out the protocol at different sites around the watershed in 2021 and work towards engaging our volunteer monitors in the future!