Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 13, 1993 TAG: 9306110044
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: RANDY UDAVCAK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The program, called "Save Our Streams," was created in 1969 by the Izaak Walton League, a nonprofit environmental organization with 400 chapters and 53,000 members nationwide. When the league's national office held a training workshop in April at the museum, groups from the New River Valley Environmental Coalition to the Girl Scouts, from Ruritan National to the New River Valley Bird Club turned out.
Suzie Leslie, coordinator of the museum's program, said it offers a rare opportunity for people interested in environmental matters.
". . . If a group would like to get involved in protecting the environment, it's the perfect way to do it as an organization and get really hands-on," she said. "So often people say, `Well, what can I really do?' This is something people can do."
After basic instruction, volunteer groups will adopt a stream to monitor.
Volunteers first set up a 3-foot net on two poles in the middle of the stream. Then they disturb a 9-square-foot area of the stream bed in front of the net, turning over rocks and stirring up the bottom. The result: Aquatic insects and bottom-dwellers are swept into the net by the current.
The net is then gathered up by the corners and laid out on shore, where the insects are separated by type into bins and counted. The numbers are tallied under one of three categories: organisms particularly sensitive to pollution, those that are somewhat sensitive and those that are generally tolerant of polluted waters. The totals in each category are taken as measure of pollution in the stream.
"In a healthy stream, you're going to find a nice variety of insects," Leslie said.
Dr. Reese Voshell, a professor of entomology at Virginia Tech whose specialty is aquatic insects, said this type of survey provides accurate and valuable information about water quality.
"Insects are kind of like indicators or red flags," he said. "If something's wrong with the insects and invertebrates, then something's wrong with the whole system, and you are soon going to have a less-than-desirable stream."
A disruption in the numbers and/or variety of bottom-dwelling organisms, he explained, may have a profound impact on the fish that feed on them. As the number of organisms decreases at each level of the food chain, animals that prey on those organisms face a food shortage. Thus a change in the smallest organisms can affect higher organisms on the food chain.
The Department of Environmental Quality - a multidimensional state-level agency that includes such agencies as the former Water Control Board - conducts water-quality tests through stations in 16 counties across the state. Every two years it compiles the data into the 305B Water Quality Assessment Report.
Nevertheless, said Kip Foster, the department's water resource manager, the state doesn't have the personnel or resources to monitor every stream in every county, and it is here that the Save Our Streams monitoring plays a key role. "What this program does is kind of fill in the gaps," he said. "It helps all of us."
Potential pollutants fall under two classifications: point-source, and nonpoint-source. Point-source pollution includes industrial waste discharge, which may be isolated in the pollution levels of a given stream. Nonpoint-source pollution refers to any of a range of factors in a watershed that may contribute to the stream's pollution, such as agricultural fertilizers and insecticides and run-off from parking lots, houses and other types of development.
Rick Roth, a graduate student in Virginia Tech's College of Architecture and Urban Studies who with several other people from the New River Valley Environmental Coalition is monitoring two sites in Montgomery County, said there is a wide variety in pollution levels from stream to stream.
In addition to overt pollution sources, he said, municipal projects such as aqueducts, catch basins and piping can have a profound effect on a stream's ecology. For example, reinforcing creek beds with cement and removing the natural foliage can increase the temperature of the stream enough to kill certain types of organisms.
Such structures often increase a stream's rate of flow, too. During dry weather, the water table may not have a chance to replenish itself, and the level of the stream may be much lower than it naturally would be. Conversely, during rainy spells, water may be fed too fast and cause flooding.
"The problem [with such systems]," said Roth, "is that they work too well."
"By and large the quality of streams in Montgomery County is pretty good," said Voshell, "but there are some problems just like everywhere else in the United States, and particularly where you get heavier agricultural use and urban development. With the increased development in the Blacksburg/Christiansburg area, you start to see problems."
While Voshell cautioned that a detailed map of water quality is still a long way off, he said a few patterns are emerging.
"If I had to make a general comment, I would say the current development activities are probably the greatest threat to surface water. They're building more parking lots, more roads and more subdivisions."
A study conducted by the Department of Environmental Quality in October 1992 backs up Voshell's impressions. Quoting from the report, Foster said a test of the Roanoke River at Dixie Caverns indicated no problems in water quality, but another test at Crab Creek in Christiansburg indicated "moderate impairment due to nonpoint-source impacts."
In this light, Voshell thinks the Save Our Streams program takes on new importance. Because of its ties to experts at Virginia Tech and its level of organization/coordination among participating groups with the museum as a base, he said, Montgomery County's Save Our Streams project stands to be one of the strongest in the national program.
As more and more groups adopt a stream and begin reporting results, Leslie said, the museum will put together a water quality map for local use and send the results to the Izaak Walton League for use in a national database. The museum is already gathering insect specimens for reference use by Save Our Streams volunteers.
Leslie said the people who showed up for the training sessions in April included students, professors, environmental field-related professionals and average citizens.
She stressed that the program is set up so anyone can participate. "If an organization calls and says they'd like to learn how to do it, we'll send a volunteer who'll give a program at one of their meetings to explain what it's all about. And then if they decide to adopt a stream, some volunteers will go with them to help them learn how to do it.
"It can sound very complicated, but it's really a fairly simple method once people have some training," she added. "It's a scientific method, but it's reduced so that people who don't have a biological background can do it. And it's a lot of fun - it's really exciting!"
Perhaps the biggest task in securing wider participation, Leslie said, is getting beyond the perception of scientific testing as difficult and esoteric. "I hope that we don't scare people away by talking about `aquatic invertebrates,' " she said. "That's why I like to call 'em `critters.' "
For more information about the Save Our Streams program, or to volunteer, call Suzie Leslie at the Virginia Museum of Natural History at Virginia Tech at 231-3001.
by CNB