BECOMING A MONITOR

Anyone with a desire to monitor water quality or learn more about the natural resources in Texas can be involved. Volunteers monitor a wide variety of habitats from rivers, creeks, ponds, and lakes to bays, bayous, and estuaries. Over 300 groups have been trained in Texas Stream Team to date. These groups range in size from one person monitoring a single site to groups whose members monitor more than 50 sites. Volunteers range from third-graders to senior citizens, from individuals to groups like the Girl Scouts and the Sierra Club. Many of the groups are science teachers and their students.

Texas Stream Team Certified Water Quality Monitors are volunteers that complete a monitoring plan and go through three phases of training using a test kit that measures physical and chemical parameters in water. Participation in the program includes these commitments:

While not a requirement for participation, volunteers are asked for a one-year commitment to monitor their site. The information collected with a Texas Stream Team kit can be considered baseline data that provide an overall picture of water quality. The physical and chemical properties of water can vary dramatically over a year and from year to year. Two years of data is considered the minimum needed to capture baseline conditions and the natural variability at a site.

Volunteers are asked to monitor their site(s) monthly at the same time of day each month. For example, a possible monitoring schedule would be the first Saturday of the month at 10:00 am. The adherence to a consistent monitoring time is crucial because the physical and chemical parameters fluctuate over a 24-hour period. Monitoring takes approximately one to two hours.

In order to collect quality-assured data, volunteers are asked to attend two quality-control sessions in the first year and one session per year thereafter. The Texas Stream Team protocols were developed under a Quality Assurance Project Plan (currently under being updated) approved by the TCEQ. The QAPP ensures volunteers collect information of the highest quality and that volunteers are collecting data that can augment professional data.