From your Volunteer Coordinator

High flow, low flow – monitor your stream. Be safe. I have monitored during high flow situations just to realize how foolish I was for going out in rising water. But today the subject is low flow. Monitor your stream. 

Coal Creek in Morris Park in Glenpool (south Tulsa County) has no flow at my site, and only a few pools. My team and I met to monitor August 19 and we got results I expected, except for one; our ammonia nitrogen was 6 mg/l!  This is crazy high! I had to do a one in ten dilution.

I saw no signs of anything having been dumped, so I pushed my brain to remember the most recent “From the Water’s Edge” when an article I submitted discussed low flow and higher temperatures squeezing nutrients from algae thus increasing a stream’s nutrient levels. Coal Creek appeared to me to have no algae in that location, so still I am confused.

Really there is only one thing to do – go back to my stream in the near future and get a sample and test the water again. Sometimes as citizen scientists it is our job to do investigative monitoring, and it is upon me at this moment to do this. I would have done it today (one day after monitoring) but I used up all of our ammonia reagents trying to come up with a green color to work with the comparator cube.

If you experience a reading you do not understand, think about what you saw at the stream, and then consider getting back to do an additional test in the near future. You also have the option of contacting your Blue Thumb staff member who oversees your area. I would consider working my way upstream and testing, to see if a particular tributary is bringing tainted water to my site, but the tributaries are no flow as well. This circles me back to needing to return to that tiny puddle that was my stream yesterday. This is why your data matters – you might just be at your stream one month when something strange is happening and you need to know about it.

Cheryl Cheadle
Volunteer Coordinator

To our Monthly Monitors:

Howdy Howdy from your QA Officer,

This ties in to your Summer 2022 QA: some more directed questions. How do you want to use your data? You go out and chemically test your creek, we come out with you for bug collecting and picking as well as seining for fish and a 400-meter physical habitat assessment. Yes, it fills in gaps to OCC’s professional creek data, which gives info about city creeks. But you have invested a lot of your personal time and effort into your creek site. What have you learned, what would you like to say about your creek, what are other questions you have about your data? I know a couple of you are using your data in the classroom or have a special project going on. But I feel more can be done with ALL this data. This is where I fall short. It is not my forte to promote, recruit, be a "cars salesman," etc. So I personally have always struggled to aid you all in how to use your data, what to do with your data, how to deliver it and whom to deliver it to. I’m sorry that I have failed you in this. And perhaps this is not your forte either and that is fine, we don’t want to force you in promoting your data if you don’t care to. But I would LOVE for you to understand your own data, if nothing else. And I can certainly help you with that.

For MANY years now we have been asking volunteers to write up a data report based on your data. These are posted on our website. They have been great reports! But I understand that this can feel daunting, and I don’t want to twist arms. And honestly, unfortunately, I don’t think these are being utilized by the public. And perhaps that is our fault for not promoting/advertising to the audience that could use this info. But I also think the general public doesn't care to read a 3+ page paper that is all words. So I think we need to come up with better ideas for this, in place of data reports.

Some thoughts that I have had recently:

• I'd still REALLY like for you creek monitors to understand your own data. So you know what all your hard work and time have produced. So how about next year attending one of several regional data workshops that will be just a couple hours long? I don’t have this planned out, just mulling over ideas in my head.
• COVID forced us all into technology and created new technology. Perhaps this is an avenue to try. Create story lines/boards, make videos, create your own advocacy group whether in person or online, poster or presentation for a conference, etc. Again, this is out of my comfort zone. Team up with a class or some students and explain to them your data and see what they can do with it. What ideas do you have?

If you are reading this and are not a creek monitor, perhaps you’ve not even been to a Blue Thumb training, what ideas do you have on this subject? What are different and effective ways volunteer citizens can share their data/results/water quality knowledge with the general public? Would/could you help us with this? I foresee numerous audiences out there that Blue Thumb would benefit, how do we get it to them, make them aware of what we have to offer?

Kim Shaw
Blue Thumb QA Officer

Make the world a better place!

If you are a volunteer who has applied for a FBT grant, submit your final report for payment. Friends of Blue Thumb will meet September 21, and we can approved your report and send a check your way! Contact Cheryl Cheadle with any questions.

Blue Thumb Volunteer Trainings

Tulsa:
September 10 (Stream Ecology Education) September 11 (Stream Monitoring)*

Weatherford:
October 15 (Stream Ecology Education) October 16 (Stream Monitoring)*

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

Sign up here!

Volunteer Monitoring Webinar

Come join us on September 13 at 3:00 pm EST (2:00 pm CT for us Oklahomans) and listen to Blue Thumb Volunteer Coordinator Cheryl Cheadle and Director of Harbor Watch Nikki Spiller talk about local uses of volunteer-collected data! The description of the webinar states:

"Across the country there are hundreds of water quality programs that involve members of the public in collecting data, but how are these data used? This webinar will explore data use on the local level by watershed programs and volunteers. Case studies will look at the use of baseline, stormwater, and bacteria data for education and pollution hot spotting."

Register for this webinar before September 13! The title of the talk is "Local Use of Volunteer-collected data: Spotlight on Long Island Sound and Oklahoma." Hope to see you there!

One species of mole is found in Oklahoma, the Eastern Mole.  All moles are equipped for life underground…dinky, nonfunctional eyes, no present ears, big paddle-like front feet for digging, and an amazingly beautiful, lush coat.  Why are we covering moles in the Soil Health article?  BECAUSE OF THEIR LIFESTYLE – and that they are amazing aerators of the soil!

Go ahead and appreciate your earthworms, but there is no earthworm that makes a tunnel as large as a mole’s tunnel.  These tunnels allow for air and water to more readily move through the soil, and mole action will actually help the soil to be a little looser.

Moles can be a gardener’s friend.  They are insectivores – they should not take the blame for eating roots and bulbs.  In fact, the mole should be appreciated for eating some of the insects that will munch on roots and bulbs.  Japanese beetle larva make a fine food for moles! 

Moles in eastern OK tend to be browner in color, in the west more gray, probably a result of different soil colors.  Keep this in mind – as you work to have a functional landscape, moles can be a part of this.  If not in your yard, where should a mole live?  Please work to have an inclusive attitude toward the wildlife with whom we share the earth.

• This drought may be a harsh one, but at least one good thing has come from it: dinosaur tracks! Because of the drought, the lack of water has revealed tracks from 113 million years ago in Texas!
• As natural glaciers recede, some communities are building their own. Check out these ice stupas!
• 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