Closing Out 2021

Tulsa Television Station KTUL ran a story early in January that December 2021 was the warmest December on record for Tulsa. The previous record was set in 1931, a long time ago, and we beat that record by five degrees Fahrenheit. Guess what also happened in Oklahoma in 2021? On February 15, 2021, we had our coldest day in state history in terms of a statewide average:   -4 degrees Fahrenheit! We know that climate change is occurring. Scientists estimate temperatures in Oklahoma have risen 0.6 degrees Fahrenheit since the beginning of the 20^th century. Since 1990, very cold nights have become less frequent. Both droughts and floods are predicted to increase in the coming century. All of these statements are true and grounded in science, but some of them pertain to weather (short-term) and some to climate (long-term).

Blue Thumb volunteers - what does this information mean to you? How do you use this kind of informaion? Does it come up in conversations?

"From the Water's Edge" would like to run an article in the March edition that includes your ideas about local weather and global climate change. How do we effectively teach these difficult and interrelated concepts? Email Cheryl and share your thoughts. Your information can be credited to you, or you can be anonymous. Let's have meaningful conversations together that reflect our varied experiences.

Cheryl Cheadle
Volunteer Coordinator

Greetings, from the Director!

Happy New Year, Blue Thumb volunteers!

I hope you and yours had a restful holiday season and are ready to welcome 2022.

Before the holidays, Kim Shaw, our QA Officer, gave a shout-out to volunteers who monitored 12 months in a row in 2021. We are grateful for each month you monitor, but our most valuable datasets are the ones that are CONSISTENT and LONG-TERM. Consistent and long-term datasets allow us to establish what is "normal" for that stream. We often refer to this as "establishing a baseline." Consistent and long-term datasets also enable us to detect trends in the data. In other words, we can look at long-term, consistent data and say with some confidence that stream conditions are relatively stable or are improving or declining. When changes are detected, we can begin to ask questions. Why is orthophosphate on the rise? Why are my macroinvertebrate collections becoming more diverse? As I see nutrients trending upward (or downward), what is happening to pH and DO?

All of your data are valuable. But maybe 2022 is the year to make your data even more valuable by creating a consistent, year-long dataset.

Thank you for all you do for Blue Thumb.

Rebecca Bond
Blue Thumb Director

To our Monthly Monitors:

Howdy Howdy from your QA Officer,

Just a few monitoring and data entry reminders:

• Measure Secchi in the deepest spot within walking distance. Some creeks are very sandy and sand shifts easily, thus what used to be the deepest spot might not be anymore. Please move your Secchi location around as the creek channel/bottom shifts.
• Your chloride blank test should take just 1 drop of silver nitrate. Your end point is the slightest color change from the bright yellow.
• Your orthophosphate blank test should be 0 on the wheel, or at most 3 on the wheel.
• When calculating % Oxygen Saturation on the chart, use the lowest mg/L oxygen and the water temp.
• Please take creek photos and upload them with the data entry app. If nothing else, I love to see them. Photos are very useful to anyone that goes to the app map to look at/download data.

If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or your blanks are registering higher than what I have mentioned above, please feel free to contact me and we will get it worked out.

Keep up with your monthly monitoring, please. Your data provides more knowledge about urban creeks as they are not monitored as much.

Kim Shaw
Blue Thumb QA Officer

Making the world a better place

Friends of Blue Thumb is invested in making the world a better place. Please take a look at our annual summary for 2021. Access it here. If you have any questions, please email us. Keep in mind that you can print out this report and provide it to folks you know who might want to join or make a donation.

ANNOUNCING: Grants for Volunteers from Friends of Blue Thumb!

Your small nonprofit "Friends of Blue Thumb" has had a better than expected year! One way of celebrating this is in the number and amounts of grants that we are providing to Blue Thumb volunteers!

Please look at the categories and amounts and make the bold decision to do something that will help your local streams and rivers! Check back with Cheryl for more information and deadlines. You might consider a theme of "I want everyone to know about Blue Thumb!"

$100 Grants
Five of these will be given to volunteers who are looking to form meaningful partnerships with other entities for the good of their local watershed. While not a lot of money, $100 can pay a registration fee, cover some postage, pay for a few gallons of gas to get to an important meeting or workshop, cover the cost of printing, or pair with additional money in your community to support a creek cleanup, hold a water festival, or provide bug boxes when you hold an activity with children at a stream.

$300 Grants
Three volunteers will receive up to $300 for funds that will help them make something happen locally! There is time to put together an Earth Day Festival. Three hundred dollars will for sure get this started. Maybe you want to promote a water research project for high school students and you want to buy some tools to make it happen. You like the idea of picking up trash along the creek and a little wagon will help. Consider how you can use a grant of up to $300.

$500 Grants
You are a teacher wanting to take your Blue Thumb "citizen scientists" on a field trip to study other streams within your ecoregion. You need help with paying for the bus and driver. You want to support a team of students taking their science fair project (based on Blue Thumb data) to the next level of competition. You want to rent a billboard to let your community know that we all live in a watershed - and our actions matter! You want a sign designating your stream as a Blue Thumb monitored site.

There are many ways that $100, $300, and $500 can make a difference to your stream and in your community. Talk to us about your ideas. You can email Cheryl for more information and also watch for an email from your Blue Thumb staff member. Let's make sure that everyone knows about Blue Thumb and how they can be involved in protecting streams!

Blue Thumb Volunteer Trainings

McAlester:
March 5 (Stream Ecology Education)
March 6 (Stream Monitoring)*

Woodward:
March 26 (Stream Ecology Education) March 27 (Stream Monitoring)*

*Stream Ecology Education Training is a prerequisite to take this training*

Sign up here!

Soil is often referred to as "earth." Of all the natural resources that are essential for life on our planet, soil might be the most taken for granted. Soil at its most basic is minerals, eroded rock, with perhaps granite being the most basic physical piece of the soil pie. Finely ground rock, though, is NOT soil. Organic matter - products of plants and animals in various states of decomposition - added to the mineral starts the formation of soil. Fases and liquids are also part of soil as we define it. Then add some life, the bacteria, fungi, insects, and worms that are found in the earth make soil a living resource. The soil pie can cut into the slices of mineral, organic matter, water (and additional liquids), and gases. But only when all of these are in the mix is it truly soil.

Crops are grown from soil, forests spring tall, prairie plants wave in the wind, animals find food and homes, all because soil is the base of our ecosystems. Our cars travel across millions of miles of highways... highways built on soil. Lakes rest in the soil, rivers cut through the soil, and land cleared for our human purposes sends soil flowing into these lakes and rivers or flying through air - essentially lost as a resource and becoming relegated to a label of pollution. But not if we are among those who take a little time to understand the value of healthy, well-functioning soil, which is what this article introduces.

The Blue Thumb Program is a part of the Water Quality Division of the Oklahoma Conservation Commission. We who are a part of the Blue Thumb team support a corps of dedicated "citizen scientist" volunteers who monitor streams and educate the public about stream and river protection. The Conservation Commission also has a Soil Health Team, which is also a part of the Water Quality Division. How we work together to create educational efforts that protect the land and water will be the subject of another "soil" article in the March edition of "From the Water's Edge."

• The world is still so large that we are still finding new animals even today! A new species of Boa was recently discovered in the Dominican Republic for the first time in 133 years!
• Want more information about stream monitoring? Check out this link for lots of cool things from the Izaak Walton League.
• Did you know that there is a whole association for Citizen Scientists? You can become a member and learn more about it here!
• Don't forget about the "Stream Selfie" project from the Izaak Walton League, the #trashtag movement, and tick testing!

Oklahoma Conservation Commission

Oklahoma Conservation Districts

Project WET

Friends of Blue Thumb

Soil Health Program

Department of Environmental Quality

EnvironMentor

Macroinvertebrate ID Website