Susquehanna Stream Team 2021 Recap

 

ALLARM’s Susquehanna Stream Team has grown since its inception three years ago with the goal to engage volunteers throughout the Susquehanna tributaries to collect scientific data of known quality that can inform local approaches to achieving improved watershed health. Since the first workshop in December 2018, ALLARM has partnered with the Lower and Middle Susquehanna Riverkeepers, three conservation districts, and four Penn State Master Watershed Coordinators to help expand and support the program. The program reached a total of 116 volunteers this year monitoring 68 sites. Volunteers contributed to over 477 monitoring events and exceeded 700 hours collecting water quality data.

 

Several highlights in 2021 includes two Cumberland County data interpretation workshops, a webinar on benthic macroinvertebrates, and eight quality control events. Additionally, ALLARM hosted four virtual meetings open to all monitors and we were excited to be able to meet in-person with volunteers from each of our seven involved counties throughout the year at least once.

Finally, this past year we expanded our reach into Dauphin and Lebanon counties, while strategically bringing in new monitors in Cumberland and Lackawanna-Luzerne counties.

 

With the involvement of new counties and workshop opportunities on the horizon, ALLARM looks forward to another year of Stream Team and to contributing valuable baseline water quality data in the upper Chesapeake Bay watershed.