March 12, 2025 • 39 mins
Illinois RiverWatch is a statewide community science (i.e. citizen science) program that trains volunteers to monitor water quality in their local streams. Learn how volunteers across the state use small water bugs, called macroinvertebrates, to look at stream health. Check out the blog post on this topic for more information.
- Illinois RiverWatch: Check out upcoming volunteer trainings and subscribe to their newsletter
- Podcast: The Science Behind Fall Color, Good Growing. Abigail mentioned this during Everyday Observations
Questions? We'd love to hear from you!
Abigail Garofalo aeg9@illinois.edu, Erin Garrett emedvecz@illinois.edu, Amy Lefringhouse heberlei@illinois.edu
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Amy (00:06):
Welcome to another episode of the Everyday Environment
podcast where we explore theenvironment we see every day.
I'm your host, Amy Lefringhouse.
Abigail (00:14):
And I'm your cohost, Abigail Garofalo.
Amy (00:17):
And today, we are here with Hannah Griffis. She is the
volunteer coordinator forNational Great Rivers, and she
is here to talk about the RiverWatch program and water quality
as a whole. So welcome, Hannah.Thank you for being with us.
Hannah (00:36):
I'm happy to be here.
Amy (00:37):
Good. Good. Well, I was just talking about how I had,
driven by your facility downthere near the is it the Melvin
Price Lock And Dam?
Hannah (00:48):
Yep.
Amy (00:49):
Yeah. The National Great Rivers Center, I guess, you
would say, has a long title. ButI guess to get started today,
Hannah, just tell us a littlebit about the work that you do
there and, you know, yeah, justyour background today before we
get started.
Hannah (01:05):
Yeah. So I work at the National Great Rivers, and I am
the volunteer coordinator therefor one of their community
science programs called IllinoisRiverWatch. And so I also work
on some of the other communityscience programs, but RiverWatch
is my main focus. And so I amkind of the main face that our
(01:26):
volunteers interact with. So Ido a lot of the outreach for it,
recruiting volunteers, trainingvolunteers, keeping the data,
and things like that.
Abigail (01:36):
Dream job. That sounds lovely. Volunteers. I just think
that, like, to give your timefreely to the natural resources
is really cool, like and thepeople who do it are just a
special kind of people, so in agood way.
Hannah (01:49):
Yeah. I agree. It's my favorite part is the
interactions with thevolunteers.
Amy (01:54):
I'm always surprised too at how passionate. if they commit
to, you know, your program,whatever it may be, especially
in natural resources, they'recommitted, they're passionate,
they dive really deep into thetopic, sometimes more than, you
know, those of us ascoordinators. You know? and then
(02:16):
they share that knowledge, whichI think is I don't know. It's
always just amazing like youguys were saying.
And you get to you get to, youknow, cross crisscross the state
too and get to see all differentstreams and people all over
everywhere. Right?
Hannah (02:32):
Yeah. I feel like I am the most familiar with
everything in Illinois. Like, Ifeel like I get to go to all
areas of the state, which I grewup in Northern Illinois, so that
was really just my area that Iknew in exploring. And, like,
it's so different down south.
Amy (02:49):
Mhmm.
Abigail (02:50):
We're all wishing that Erin was here to say, yes. It
is, because she knows too.That's our other our other
podcast host.
So, you know, RiverWatch, it'sstudying our rivers and streams.
why study water quality? What'simportant about understanding
the quality of our water andstreams in Illinois?
Hannah (03:09):
I think the easiest way to understand is the reference
for humans. So we get all of ourdrinking water from our fresh
water in the area. We also useit for recreation, and,
honestly, it's just it supportsall of our living life. Like,
nobody can survive withoutwater. So not only is it
(03:30):
important for us to have goodquality water, it is also
important for all of the plantsand animals in our environment.
And for the most part, thethings that harm water quality
are coming from humans, so it'simportant that we are the ones
that are doing something aboutit.
Abigail (03:47):
Yeah. And we can't do anything about it if we don't
assess it in the first place.Right? Like, we gotta know
what's going on.
Hannah (03:53):
If you don't know there's a problem, you can't fix
it.
Amy (03:57):
Absolutely. I think that sometimes we don't know what we
don't know either. You know,we're just kinda rolling along
developing as humans anddeveloping new products and new
practices on our land and thisand that and the other. And
sometimes we don't realize maybethe level of impact that we
might have on, you know, somethings that we take for granted,
(04:19):
which might be, you know, water.And if you travel travel the
world too, sometimes we do takeour clean water for granted. So
keeping track of the quality ofthat water, yeah, is immense.
Hannah (04:32):
Yeah. And it's really important for fresh water
because only 3% of the world'swater is freshwater. And of
that, only we only have accessto 0.3% of that, because the
rest of it's frozen or too farunderground for us to access.
Amy (04:49):
Interesting point. Yeah. And our rivers and I mean,
obviously, we have several majorriver systems kind of on both
sides of our state. Right? Ilive right on the Mississippi
River.
Hannah, you guys are down therein Alton on the Mississippi
River. And, yeah, we think it'severywhere. Right? I mean, it's
(05:09):
here, there, and everywhere, butyou don't realize it's, not
everywhere.
Abigail (05:15):
We're a little bit of a a state defined by water. Like,
I think a lot of our borders arerivers, and streams. And so it's
it's interesting to think about.
Amy (05:25):
And our and Lake Michigan. We've got, you know, that border
up there by you, Abigail, whichis what do they say? Salt life?
Those salt life stickers. But ifyou've ever gone into any of the
to any of the beaches alongthere, like, along Lake
Michigan, but on Michigan side,they have, like I can't remember
what the sticker says, but it'ssomething like freshwater life
(05:49):
or something like that. Youknow? As, like, the the opposite
of the salt life stickersstickers people put on the backs
of their cars. I think that'sfunny.
Well, in studying our waterquality, so if we wanna figure
out what is out there, how wouldwe measure, and what types of
things would we use asindicators for for water
quality?
Hannah (06:10):
Yeah. So most often, people think of water quality in
terms of chemistry. So taking,like, specialized equipment out
and getting water samples andmeasuring the chemistry of it,
like the dissolved oxygen andthe phosphorus and nitrogen
that's in the water and thingslike that, which chemistry is a
(06:31):
really important part ofmonitoring water quality, but
it's not the only aspect to lookat. So another way to monitor
water quality is usingbioindicators. So that's using
living organisms to tell usabout what is happening in the
environment.
So this can be done in bothterrestrial and aquatic
(06:52):
environments of people lookingat what organisms are living
there, to get an idea of thehealthiness of the environment.
For aquatic environments, a lotof the time, that is looking at
fish and macroinvertebrates,which are water bugs.
Abigail (07:07):
Aquatic ecosystems always kind of just, like, slipp
my mind, and probably by the endof the season, I won't feel that
way. Right? But I it I'mthinking about, you know, like,
land things too. Like, we have aa c value for certain plants.
Right? I think it's I don't knowif aquatic plants are part of
that scientific valuation. Amy'slike, I don't know either. But I
(07:31):
I'm familiar with them forterrestrial plants and, like,
basically, like, a one to a ten,and ten being, like, that's the
highest level of conservation.Right?
And one being, like, it's kindof aggressive, zero being
nonnative. And so, like, when wehave, like, a land like, a
terrestrial ecosystem and, like,the average C value is pretty
(07:53):
low, that tells us somethingabout, like, the, quality of
that ecosystem. And so it's it'sI'm kind of, like, equating that
to, like, this idea of, like,the the community of
macroinvertebrates that existsthere. Those are kind of telling
us that quality as well. Andit's interesting to think about
that.
Like, we have all these systems,and water just is a little bit
(08:14):
different because it's really,like, the organisms are, like,
enveloped in all of the pieces.Right? Like, there's no
escaping, really. And that Ireally and the the way that they
take in different nutrients andoxygen and things like that
really kind of impacts how howmuch kind of, like,
contamination or things likethat they they take into their
bodies. So it's interesting tothink about.
Hannah (08:39):
Yeah. So when we're looking at the
macroinvertebrates, it's reallysimilar to that. They have been
they're, like, really wellstudied, and they all have all
of the ones that we use asbioindicators have a known
tolerance to pollution. So thenthey're assigned a number based
on that known tolerance. So, ifthey can't live in pollution,
(09:00):
they get a lower number closerto zero like the caddisflies and
mayflies.
But then if they can toleratepollution and they can pretty
much live anywhere, then theyget a higher number, like our
bloodworm midges, our, forRiverWatch, that's our highest,
tolerance value organism. Sothen we basically when we
(09:22):
collect all themacroinvertebrates and see which
ones are there, we can get anidea based on those numbers, how
healthy a water body is.
Abigail (09:30):
That's like golf. The lower the number, the better.
Amy (09:32):
Yeah. I think it's cool too because, you know, we talk a lot
about plants. I think the threeof us on this podcast that are
on here regularly are kindaplant lovers. You know, when I'm
walking around with theforester, we're looking for in
you know, indicator species isgonna show us that, oh, this war
forest is healthy, and plantsstay still. Right?
(09:55):
We can go back out there to theto the woods or to the prairie
or whatever and find that plantagain most of the time. You
know? But then this idea of in astream, thinking of moving, you
know, organisms, thinking, youknow, wildlife, I guess, if you
will. There's probably a alittle bit of a different
(10:15):
procedure to, you know, figureout that water quality or catch,
I guess, catch thoseorganically, things like that.
So I guess tell us a little bitwe talked a little bit about my
macroinvertebrates, and we'llprobably go into them a little
bit more. But overall, wementioned RiverWatch. So talk
(10:36):
about the program and how itrelates to, you know, studying
water quality And maybe some ofits history too. I was involved
with it a really long time agowhen I was in college.
Hannah (10:50):
Yeah. So RiverWatch is a statewide community science
program. So just a littlebackground on community science
first. That is where, thegeneral public or volunteers
come out and help scientistscollect the data. So RiverWatch
is a community science programthat's statewide, and we train
(11:11):
volunteers to collect waterquality data.
So that water quality data lookslike a habitat survey, so that's
where they're looking at, theplants, what sediment is in a
stream, how fast and big thestream is, things like that. And
then they do a biological surveywhere they collect
macroinvertebrates, and thenidentify them and figure out the
(11:34):
our main metric that we use iscalled the macroinvertebrate
biotic index. So that'sbasically an average of all
those tolerance values to get aan average number of what's
going on in there. And a littlebit of background on the program
is we originally started in1995. So this will be our
thirtieth year, our thirtiethanniversary.
(11:56):
It was started by the IllinoisDepartment of Natural Resources
and was originally under a widerprogram called EcoWatch Network,
but they lost funding for it in2004. And so in 2006, National
Great Rivers, took over theprogram and has been running it
(12:16):
since then. So we do have somesites that have been monitored
for ... I think we might haveone or two that have been
monitored for all thirty years,but quite a few sites that have
been monitored for more thantwenty years.
Abigail (12:28):
That's such powerful data to get that kind of long
term because a lot of the timessometimes we go into sites
afterwards to find out, youknow, like, what happened. Oh,
the levels of, you know, certainpollutants are this high. Well,
what was it twenty years ago?Like, what's the difference now?
And if we don't have that datalike, in soil, that's
invaluable.
Right? We have some old soilsamples. There was a project
(12:50):
from from University of Illinoisin which they were doing those
kinds of sampling of, like,hundred year old soil data and
then going back and finding theoriginal sites now. And, like,
to be able to have thatcomparison over time is just
crazy, especially given too,like, this focus on restoring
our waterways and, nutrientreduction or loss reduction and
(13:11):
things like that. Like, are webeing effective in the work that
we're doing, and, what do weneed to do differently? So
twenty year data. Wow. That'sreally great. Thirty year data
in some places.
Amy (13:23):
That is really cool. When you're looking at that data, and
I'm going a little I guess I'mgoing one step further, and
maybe we can go backwards too.But, like, what do you do with
that data? So I guess and wecould talk more. I I feel like
we need to dive deeper into whatcommunity science is, but I
guess my mind is like, okay.Cool. So we have volunteers out
(13:45):
there. They're looking at thisthe the macroinvertebrates.
They're looking at thesestreams. They're sending their
data to you, Hannah. Like andthen what?
So we have so what do you doafter that? Does it go somewhere
else where we're making plansto, you know, figure something
out with the really streams thatwe see that might have some
really bad issues?
Hannah (14:06):
Yeah. So RiverWatch as a program is more of like a data
hub. So we collect all thisdata, and then we give it to
people when they ask for it. So,generally, our data as a whole
is not really being used. Like,we are gonna put some
publications out with it, but interms of, like, policy and stuff
(14:28):
like that, it's not really beingused in that way.
But it's generally used morefor, like, smaller projects. So,
like, if a city wants to do arestoration project, they'll ask
us for our data so they can havebefore data and then after data
or a lot of forest preserves orpark districts. We'll use it for
things like that. And then,like, we have people monitoring
(14:48):
in Midewin, and they use theirdata in Nachusa Grasslands. And
so it's a lot more like smallerprojects that the data is being
used for and compared, but thedata as a whole, we haven't done
that much with yet.
Abigail (15:01):
I mean, these smaller projects, those are usually
projects that don't have thecapacity to gather that data
themselves. Yeah. And then eventoo, like, a unified measurement
across the state, like,everybody's using the same
metrics. I mean, there's a lotof potential there and to, like,
compare you know, if somebodyever wanted to look and say,
(15:24):
like, well, Nachusa is doingthis, and they've been measuring
their water qual like, theirwater quality is measured. And
Midewin is doing this, and theirwater quality is measured in the
same exact way
They can actually do, like, anan apples to apples comparison,
which is so cool. Because a lotof the time, it's, like,
different data collection,right, methods Right. Across
(15:46):
projects. So, yeah, reallyawesome service to science.
Amy (15:51):
That's a good point. I think when I first started back
in the day when I was going toschool and getting ready to go
into my career, you know, Ilearned about different
community science programs, andI was like, oh, no big deal. We
just all go out and do the samething. And then I think I went
somewhere in Chicago, and theywere developing a new community
(16:14):
science program, and I don'teven remember what the program
was. And they talked about howlong it took to develop the
protocols and learn from, youknow, testing it, piloting the
protocol.
Did we get the data that wewanted? Is the data good data?
Is there room for error that wecan't, you know? So do you guys
(16:42):
tweak any of those protocols oror look at that year to year
based on, you know, yourvolunteer feedback and what you
guys see from the data side?
Hannah (16:52):
Yeah. So we try really hard not to make any changes to
the methods since we've beenusing the same methods for the
last thirty years. We don'twanna change that at that at
this point. But what we dochange is our the way we train
people. So we do have a qualityassurance plan, and part of that
plan is 30% of our samples everyyear, get double checked by a
(17:13):
professional with IllinoisNatural History Survey.
And then we compare the accuracyrates from the volunteers. And
so based on the results of that,QA analysis, we will add things
into our training to helppeople, particularly with
identification , themacroinvertebrate
identification, is where, we getthe most errors in our, data. So
(17:38):
we're not too worried about themethods. The methods are not
that hard, but what is harderfor people to learn is the
macroinvertebrateidentification. And we do go
down to a farther level on ourmacroinvertebrate identification
than the programs in The statesaround us, and that is to try to
collect higher quality data.
But then that does leave roomfor more error training people
(18:00):
who do not have a background inthis. To be able to identify
insects is not the easiest thingto do, but it does like, our QA
data is pretty good. We shootfor, like, an 80% accuracy, so
it is working. Yeah. I have acouple of questions. One, I
wanna kinda back up a littlebit. So when we say insects, if
people aren't familiar with, youknow, like, the insects we're
(18:22):
discussing, what, like, what arethese insects? Like, what do
they look like? When I thinkinsect, I think, you know,
flying around a little bit. Whatare what are the insects that
we're studying in, RiverWatch?
Yeah. So macro the termmacroinvertebrates actually
covers worms, crustaceans,insects, and mollusks. I tend to
(18:42):
talk about insects and bugs alot because that's the majority
of what we're looking at, but wealso get those other three, taxa
as well. So for our worms, we'retalking about things like
flatworms and leeches. Ourcrustaceans, we're looking at
things like, isopods, which aresimilar to, like, roly polys on
(19:03):
our land, and crayfish.
And then the mollusks are snailsand mussels. But then when we're
talking about the insects,almost everything that we're
talking about is their larval ortheir nymph phases, so the
younger phases, not the adults.Most of the insects, pretty much
all of them except for thebeetles, will become terrestrial
(19:24):
as adults. So they spend theirlarval stages in the water, and
then they'll come up and molt.And when they become adults,
they're terrestrial.
Abigail (19:32):
I always think that's so cool. I love doing pond dips
with kids and being like, thisis a dragonfly, and its jaw just
flips out. Yeah.
Hannah (19:43):
Yeah. Kids get so excited about
macroinvertebrates.
Amy (19:47):
And, well, I was I was just gonna add, I just remember when
I was learning aboutmacroinvertebrates, you know,
micro versus macro. Right? Somicro, things that we cannot see
without a microscope, but macrobeing, you know, bugs and things
in in the water that we can seewith our own eyes, which makes
it, you know, a lot easier forvolunteers to be able to
(20:10):
identify and work with.
Hannah (20:13):
Yeah. And I do just wanna clarify, they are still
pretty small, but you can seethem without a microscope.
Amy (20:20):
But looking at them underneath the microscope is is
really, really cool. Reallyneat.
Hannah (20:25):
Yeah. Yeah.
Abigail (20:27):
I don't know. I've seen a mayfly, like, size of, like,
my knuckle to my end of mypinky, which I feel like is a
pretty big mayfly. But, yeah,some of them are really I would
love to hear about, like so if aa volunteer is going out and,
doing an assessment, what doesthat look like? Like, what are
they doing out there?
Hannah (20:47):
Yeah. So they work on a 200 foot segment of a stream,
and that is usually sites thatthey pick out for themselves.
But if they need help finding asite, we will also suggest
sites. So when they get outthere, they'll measure out their
site, and they start with thehabitat survey. So they'll, draw
a little site sketch to showwhat their site looks like so
(21:12):
that, when they come back in thefuture, they can see if things
are changing.
And then they'll do the habitatsurvey. So taking the
temperature of the water andlooking at the plants that are
around and then, looking at thecomposition of the sediment of
the stream. And then they'll doa flow measurement, so that is
looking at the the width, thedepth, and the velocity of the
(21:35):
stream. And then they'll markdown the land uses, and then
that's basically the wholehabitat survey.
Abigail (21:41):
Is that through, like, the ping pong ball? Right?
Hannah (21:43):
Yeah. So they'll drop a practice golf ball or a
practice, like, a ping pongball, and they'll measure how
long it takes for it to move 10feet in the water, how long it,
takes to float down in thewater.
Abigail (21:56):
That's cool.
Hannah (21:57):
Yeah. So then the biological survey, they use
what's called a D frame net. Soit is what it sounds like. It
is, like, in the shape of a D,and then there's a net behind
it, and the pole's about fivefeet tall. And they'll put that
into the sediment, and they'llbasically use their feet to kick
up the sediment.
And anything that's gettingknocked loose while they're
(22:17):
kicking around the sediment willflow into the net. And then
they'll put that into a bucket,and then they'll sample a second
spot. And then once they havetheir whole sample, they'll go
through it and pick outbasically anything that's
moving. And for this program, wedo require people to preserve
the macroinvertebrates, so theyget put into isopropyl alcohol,
(22:38):
and then they will use amicroscope to identify them in a
lab.
Abigail (22:42):
Is there any discussion or or, like, I guess, like, data
taken on invasives? Because Iknow, like, they have, like,
rusty crayfish and things likethat.
Hannah (22:50):
Yeah. So we do have a section on the biological data
sheet where they mark down,whether certain species are
present and absent. And sothere's two natives we look for.
We look for fingernail clams andfreshwater mussels, so we have
them mark if those are at theirsites. We don't have them
collect any of those or anythingbecause a lot of them are
threatened or endangered.
And then they'll look for, rustycrayfish, Asian clam, zebra
(23:16):
mussels, and Chinese mysterysnails are the ones that we
currently have people lookingfor.
Amy (23:21):
That's cool. If you were just listening to this, it
sounds like you have to use alot of equipment. So are there
is there ways that volunteerscan get equipment then?
Hannah (23:30):
Yeah. So there it isn't too much equipment that you
need. It's basically a bucket, anet, and then stuff to measure,
like, the flow. But we do have,kit hosts throughout the state,
so you can check out amonitoring kit from one of those
places that hosts it, and thenyou can go out and do your
survey and then return it.
Abigail (23:48):
Right. Cook County, University of Illinois Extension
is a host. So we have one in ourWestchester Extension office in
up here. So, anyway, listeningis like, oh, I wanna do that. We
got the host. So but after youget trained. So Yeah.
Amy (24:07):
Okay. Equipment. So if we wanted to volunteer, Hannah,
like, I guess, what would we do?What is the, like, training
season and then the samplingseason and then, you know, how
does it flow throughout theyear? What would be our first
steps if we wanted to be like,yes. we have a stream that I
(24:27):
know of here in my community,and I'd really like to start
monitoring that. How would theygo about, you know, contacting
you and and starting thatprocess?
Hannah (24:37):
Yeah. So the training workshops are usually held in
March through early May, so theyshould be announced right now.
Amy (24:48):
Alright.
Hannah (24:49):
So a training workshop is currently it is a six to
eight hour day training. Itcosts $50 for adults. Kids are
allowed to attend for free, butthey must attend with an adult.
And, during that trainingworkshop, the first part of the
day will be inside where we'remostly spending the whole time
(25:10):
learning how to identify all themacroinvertebrates. So they get
to look through a microscope,and I believe it's I believe we
teach the volunteers how toidentify 36 different kinds.
And then we'll have a lunchbreak, and then we will go
outside, to a nearby stream anddemonstrate the field methods.
So the afternoon is all aboutbasically just walking through
(25:33):
the survey sheets and how tocollect all the data. And then
once volunteers are trained, themonitoring season, the main part
of it is May and June. So whenyou adopt a site, you only need
to monitor it once per year. Soif you only have one site,
you're only going out once, butsome people will choose to adopt
more than one site so they cango out more than once.
(25:55):
So the main monitoring season isMay and June, and then we have
an optional secondary one thatis September and October. And
that's for if people want tocollect more data on their
streams, they're welcome to dothat. Or if they just really
couldn't get out during thesummer, they can go out in
September and October. And thenwe have open labs in July and
(26:15):
August. So after people collecttheir macroinvertebrate samples
and they leave their site with apreserved sample jar, they can
bring that to our open labs anduse our microscopes.
And then we usually have a staffmember there who can help with
identification.
Abigail (26:30):
And that that's in Alton?
Hannah (26:32):
We'll hold the open labs in the same areas that we do our
training workshops. Yeah. Bothare both are we usually have 10
to 15 spread out through thewhole state.
Abigail (26:41):
Very cool. And you announce your trainings on the
website?
Hannah (26:45):
Yeah. So they'll be on the website. They'll be on our
Facebook page. That's our socialmedia that we use the most
often. They'll be announced inour newsletter, which there's a
sign up for our newsletter onour website as well.
Abigail (26:58):
And, hopefully, we'll include some in the email that
goes out with this podcast.Yeah. Awesome. Well, I guess my
last question for you, is kindof just a little bit of under
trying to understand, I guess,the structure of the project.
Why community science?
Why not researchers doing thisdata collection? They're, like,
(27:19):
professional scientists, Iguess.
Hannah (27:21):
So I'm gonna start with the benefit to the volunteers.
So community science engages thevolunteers with science that I
feel like is not done in otherways and other outreach. Like,
you don't fully understand thescientific process until you're
doing it and getting involvedwith it. And it also helps
(27:43):
create scientific literacy andhelps people stay informed with
their problems. And then it alsohelps form a community between
the volunteers for them toconnect over things they care
about.
But in the terms of benefits forthe scientists, we can reach a
lot more areas and spend a lotmore time, collecting data than
(28:04):
we would if it was just this twoof us, me, and the director of
RiverWatch going out to collectdata. So an example of this is
the Illinois EPA, does theirstatewide stream monitoring, and
they only hit about 15% of thestream miles in Illinois when
they go out to do that. Sothere's really lots of areas of
the state that are not beinglooked at by scientists until
(28:27):
there's already a problem. Sohaving this data from coming
from volunteers before a problemis happening is really helpful.
Abigail (28:36):
I'm just thinking about too, like, how much you
personally learn as a personwho's just taking an assessment
of a site over time. You know, Ilike that there's the optional
fall one as well, because youcan just see how things change.
When I train my masternaturalists, and they're like, I
really wanna, like, be reallygood at, like, identification,
(28:56):
like, the people who walked methrough this prairie or
whatever. And I'm like, they'rereally good at it because they
are at that site.
They assess that site. They'rein the ground looking at it, and
they're looking at the plantsand the animals and identifying
and things like that. And so,like, being part of your
community in that way, part ofyour ecosystem in that way is,
(29:19):
like, really special and allowsyou to learn so much more than,
you know, sitting on a webinarsaying these are the, you know,
18 macroinvertebrates that youcould know. You all bring
examples and samples for peopleto actually look at through the
microscopes, which is so cooland so valuable, and then they
get to actually go see that. Andthen they can say, that's what
my stream has.
(29:40):
Like, they feel this personaltie and connection to the land,
which is really wonderful.
Hannah (29:45):
Yeah. And it's also really beneficial to the
scientists to have thatvolunteer perspective. Since
we're a statewide program, wedon't know what's going on in
all of these communities. So,like, if a volunteer finds
something going on in theirdata, they can already have
ideas. Like, hey. I know thisconstruction project happened
last winter, so could this beaffecting my data? So having
(30:07):
that community perspective isreally helpful when interpreting
the data.
Amy (30:11):
Yeah. Good point. Well and you guys the RiverWatch program
provides such great support too,so you're not just out there
trying to do it all on your own.
I mean, you're out there. You doa lot of it on your own, but
there's also like, if you getstuck, you you know, you guys
have a good safety net, a goodway to help volunteers out if
(30:33):
they, you know, feel intimidatedby, you know, identifying things
on their own. You have,obviously, the pretraining, but
also the support afterwards. Youknow, I'm sure take a picture,
email it, you know, all thoseYeah. Types of things as well.
So that's that's great for avolunteer to feel supported like
that.
(30:53):
Well, is there anything else, Iguess, before we wrap up,
Hannah, is there anything elseyou wanna cover about the
RiverWatch program or just waterquality in general that we
didn't hit on today?
Hannah (31:04):
Yeah. I just wanted to say that, I mean, this whole
podcast, we've been talkingabout how great RiverWatch, but
RiverWatch is only great becauseof our volunteers. Like, we
would be nothing if these peopleweren't giving their time to go
out and collect this data. So Ijust wanna say, especially
coming up with our thirtiethanniversary, how important our
volunteers are to us and howmuch we appreciate them.
Amy (31:27):
I would echo that.
Abigail (31:30):
All of us were like, yes.
Amy (31:32):
Yes. Say it again. Say it again. On the megaphone
Abigail (31:37):
Yeah. At the top of the podcast, we said this. There's
just, like, something specialabout volunteers that, like,
wanna devote themselves to time,their extra time and effort. You
know, we don't have a ton ofextra time in in this world,
when it comes to all the workthat we do. And I just, to take
some of that to devoting tounderstanding the world around
(31:58):
us a little bit more andcontribute to science is really,
really cool.
Amy (32:02):
Mhmm. Agreed. Well, congratulations, Hannah, and
your team on thirty years.That's pretty amazing. And,
really, thank you so much forbeing on our podcast today,
Hannah, and just discussing, youknow, water quality and how we
can be involved and actuallybeing active in, monitoring our
(32:22):
water quality in our communitycommunities.
Like every episode, we end ourepisode with a space called
everyday observation where wehighlight the mundane and the
normal of our environment thatis actually really interesting.
So I'm gonna kick it off, orkick it over there to you,
Abigail. Do you have an everydayobservation that you'd like to
(32:45):
share with us today?
Abigail (32:47):
I do, and it's gonna feel a little out of place
because right now, we'rerecording the week after
Thanksgiving. And so it is, likelike, late fall, early winter
kind of vibes, And, this isgoing to be released in the
spring. So I'm gonna take all ofour listeners back a couple of
months as I explain this. And soI'm in Northern Illinois. My
(33:10):
family lives in CentralIllinois.
And pretty much up here, like,all the leaves were gone. And I
went to Central Illinois, and Iwas like, man, nobody, like,
rakes their leaves here, which,like, I'm not one to be, like,
rake your leaves, but it willcause, like, death of the grass
if you don't rake it more than30% of the grass covered. And so
(33:31):
there were, like, mats ofleaves. And I was talking to my
mom, and I was like, mom, like,does your, like, do your
neighbors just, like, not dothat? And she was like, no.
They all dropped in one daybecause it got so cold. And I
was like, oh, like, that's wildto think about that, like and
also, like, wow. Real big checkon myself for being so judgy.
(33:51):
Right? But I was just thinkingabout it.
I was like, wow. Like, I wonderyou know, I wanna understand
that physiological process alittle bit more as to, like,
when the drop and why the dropand and dropping all at once
versus a few at a time. ChrisEnroth, I believe, in the Good
Growing podcast. Right, Amy? Hereleased one that was just
(34:14):
specifically about, like, whyleaves change color and what
the, like, ecological adaptationand the advantages of that is.
And I, like, just keep thinkingabout that and thinking about
that. So definitely everybodylistening, go check out that
episode about, like, why leaveschange color and why it's
beneficial for them to, like,hold on to them as long as
possible. Really, really neatshort bite of an episode. But it
(34:37):
just kinda made me think and askmyself why all at once when
certain temperatures happen.
Amy (34:43):
Curious. So that's my observation. I like that. I like
that a lot.
Hannah (34:47):
Mine's related. Can I go next?
Amy (34:49):
Go. You go. Yes.
Hannah (34:52):
So mine is also has to do with the leaves just dropping
recently. And I actually reallylike this time of year when the
leaves drop because it is myfavorite thing to see all the
nests in the trees, because youcan't see them whenever the
leaves are there, and thensuddenly the leaves are gone.
And it's like, I didn't know Ihad six nests in this tree right
(35:14):
next to my apartment.
Amy (35:15):
Yeah.
Hannah (35:16):
So that's just generally being able to see those nests
even if there's nobody in them.I think it's really cool to see
the structure of them.
Amy (35:23):
I totally agree with that. in a tree that's in, near me, we
didn't realize there was ahornet nest, up there too that
we were just like, oh my gosh.We didn't realize that was
there. It was so totally hidden.It's way up at the top of the
tree, and we didn't know it wasthere. And then leaves fell and
(35:44):
ta da.
Abigail (35:45):
Yeah. All those squirrel nests.
Amy (35:48):
Yeah.
Abigail (35:48):
I love talking to people who don't know what those
are and be like, no. Those aresquirrel those are not just like
a bunch of, like, leaves thatdidn't fall. Like, that was
intentional there,
Amy (35:56):
and it's cool. Yeah. They're pretty messy, aren't
they?
Abigail (35:59):
They're so messy.
Amy (36:00):
They're like, here here here. Let's just have fun.
Hannah (36:02):
But the inside is different than the outside.
Like, it's not like the insidehas, like, a different material
because that's what they use forthe bedding. So it does have
structure, but, yeah, it justlooks like a pile of leaves.
Amy (36:12):
That's interesting. I'm gonna go down the same path. I
feel like I mean, again, we arein the spring, but I've been
noticing this is just anothernotice I guess, noticing nature
moment that the bark of trees. Idon't know. I'm in this kind of,
like we've we did a treeinventory in our community, and
(36:33):
I've been noticing the bark oftrees.
And it's spring right now whenwe re when we release this
podcast, so probably not a lotof leaves developing quite yet.
But looking at that bark cantell you a lot. And the more and
more I work on just myidentification skills for trees,
(36:53):
the more and more I am justnoticing the bark, the bark, you
know, structure, the barkpatterns, the type of bark, and
then just, you know,categorizing that with, you
know, what species of tree theyare. And just the bark, you can
almost tell. Just tell what typeof tree it is by the bark just
(37:16):
really quickly, a lot of timeswithout having any leaves on.
So, just that continuingpractice that I'm working
through, I guess I'mappreciating more than I've ever
had before just, that barktexture.
Abigail (37:32):
That's a really developed skill set because I
feel like it's all you know,like, when when you initially
before you learn plants,there's, like, this term plant
blindness of, like, I don't Ithey're all just plants. Right?
Amy (37:43):
Right.
Abigail (37:43):
feel like bark is kind of that sense, but, like, it's,
like, the next level up afteryou know how to identify the
leaves. You're like, yeah. Thatof course, that bark's
different. But, like, for me,like, unless it's, like, the
warty bark or, like, the, blackcherry tree.
I, like, super like, people willbe like, of course, that's a
white oak bark. Don't you know?And I'm like, actually, I don't.
(38:03):
Like, I really because it's apractice skill over time to,
like, see those differences andmake them a little more
intuitive. So I'm it's reallycool. I'm glad you're working on
that skill.
Amy (38:14):
Well, it kinda goes back to what you're talking about with
macroinvertebrates and just,like, wanting to be better at
identification ofmacroinvertebrates. It's like
any skill or sport or whateverpractice, practice, practice.
Right? Mhmm. Time you spend withmacroinvertebrates over and over
and over, the more you're like,oh, I got that.
Oh, I got that. And I think anyany identification work, my our
(38:35):
master naturalist over here justdid a a small pilot tree
inventory for our community, andthey were so excited about
putting their identificationskills into practice and into
something that will be helpfulfor our community. And they're
like, I just learned so muchbecause we just kept doing it
over and over and practicing itand, you know, recognizing the
(38:59):
tree species a lot faster thananyway, fun fun stuff. Thank you
again, Hannah, for being with ustoday. We really appreciate you,
and we appreciate your time.
Hannah (39:08):
Yeah. Thank you for having me.
Amy (39:11):
Well, this has been another episode on the Everyday
Environment podcast. Check usout next week where we talk with
Sarah Zack, one of our favoriteguests, and she is going to talk
about new research on emergingcontaminants in our waterways.
Abigail (39:32):
This podcast is a University of Illinois Extension
production, hosted and edited byAbigail Garofalo, Erin Garrett,
and Amy Lefringhouse.
Welcome to another episode of the Everyday Environment
podcast where we explore theenvironment we see every day.
I'm your host, Amy Lefringhouse.
Abigail (00:14):
And I'm your cohost, Abigail Garofalo.
Amy (00:17):
And today, we are here with Hannah Griffis. She is the
volunteer coordinator forNational Great Rivers, and she
is here to talk about the RiverWatch program and water quality
as a whole. So welcome, Hannah.Thank you for being with us.
Hannah (00:36):
I'm happy to be here.
Amy (00:37):
Good. Good. Well, I was just talking about how I had,
driven by your facility downthere near the is it the Melvin
Price Lock And Dam?
Hannah (00:48):
Yep.
Amy (00:49):
Yeah. The National Great Rivers Center, I guess, you
would say, has a long title. ButI guess to get started today,
Hannah, just tell us a littlebit about the work that you do
there and, you know, yeah, justyour background today before we
get started.
Hannah (01:05):
Yeah. So I work at the National Great Rivers, and I am
the volunteer coordinator therefor one of their community
science programs called IllinoisRiverWatch. And so I also work
on some of the other communityscience programs, but RiverWatch
is my main focus. And so I amkind of the main face that our
(01:26):
volunteers interact with. So Ido a lot of the outreach for it,
recruiting volunteers, trainingvolunteers, keeping the data,
and things like that.
Abigail (01:36):
Dream job. That sounds lovely. Volunteers. I just think
that, like, to give your timefreely to the natural resources
is really cool, like and thepeople who do it are just a
special kind of people, so in agood way.
Hannah (01:49):
Yeah. I agree. It's my favorite part is the
interactions with thevolunteers.
Amy (01:54):
I'm always surprised too at how passionate. if they commit
to, you know, your program,whatever it may be, especially
in natural resources, they'recommitted, they're passionate,
they dive really deep into thetopic, sometimes more than, you
know, those of us ascoordinators. You know? and then
(02:16):
they share that knowledge, whichI think is I don't know. It's
always just amazing like youguys were saying.
And you get to you get to, youknow, cross crisscross the state
too and get to see all differentstreams and people all over
everywhere. Right?
Hannah (02:32):
Yeah. I feel like I am the most familiar with
everything in Illinois. Like, Ifeel like I get to go to all
areas of the state, which I grewup in Northern Illinois, so that
was really just my area that Iknew in exploring. And, like,
it's so different down south.
Amy (02:49):
Mhmm.
Abigail (02:50):
We're all wishing that Erin was here to say, yes. It
is, because she knows too.That's our other our other
podcast host.
So, you know, RiverWatch, it'sstudying our rivers and streams.
why study water quality? What'simportant about understanding
the quality of our water andstreams in Illinois?
Hannah (03:09):
I think the easiest way to understand is the reference
for humans. So we get all of ourdrinking water from our fresh
water in the area. We also useit for recreation, and,
honestly, it's just it supportsall of our living life. Like,
nobody can survive withoutwater. So not only is it
(03:30):
important for us to have goodquality water, it is also
important for all of the plantsand animals in our environment.
And for the most part, thethings that harm water quality
are coming from humans, so it'simportant that we are the ones
that are doing something aboutit.
Abigail (03:47):
Yeah. And we can't do anything about it if we don't
assess it in the first place.Right? Like, we gotta know
what's going on.
Hannah (03:53):
If you don't know there's a problem, you can't fix
it.
Amy (03:57):
Absolutely. I think that sometimes we don't know what we
don't know either. You know,we're just kinda rolling along
developing as humans anddeveloping new products and new
practices on our land and thisand that and the other. And
sometimes we don't realize maybethe level of impact that we
might have on, you know, somethings that we take for granted,
(04:19):
which might be, you know, water.And if you travel travel the
world too, sometimes we do takeour clean water for granted. So
keeping track of the quality ofthat water, yeah, is immense.
Hannah (04:32):
Yeah. And it's really important for fresh water
because only 3% of the world'swater is freshwater. And of
that, only we only have accessto 0.3% of that, because the
rest of it's frozen or too farunderground for us to access.
Amy (04:49):
Interesting point. Yeah. And our rivers and I mean,
obviously, we have several majorriver systems kind of on both
sides of our state. Right? Ilive right on the Mississippi
River.
Hannah, you guys are down therein Alton on the Mississippi
River. And, yeah, we think it'severywhere. Right? I mean, it's
(05:09):
here, there, and everywhere, butyou don't realize it's, not
everywhere.
Abigail (05:15):
We're a little bit of a a state defined by water. Like,
I think a lot of our borders arerivers, and streams. And so it's
it's interesting to think about.
Amy (05:25):
And our and Lake Michigan. We've got, you know, that border
up there by you, Abigail, whichis what do they say? Salt life?
Those salt life stickers. But ifyou've ever gone into any of the
to any of the beaches alongthere, like, along Lake
Michigan, but on Michigan side,they have, like I can't remember
what the sticker says, but it'ssomething like freshwater life
(05:49):
or something like that. Youknow? As, like, the the opposite
of the salt life stickersstickers people put on the backs
of their cars. I think that'sfunny.
Well, in studying our waterquality, so if we wanna figure
out what is out there, how wouldwe measure, and what types of
things would we use asindicators for for water
quality?
Hannah (06:10):
Yeah. So most often, people think of water quality in
terms of chemistry. So taking,like, specialized equipment out
and getting water samples andmeasuring the chemistry of it,
like the dissolved oxygen andthe phosphorus and nitrogen
that's in the water and thingslike that, which chemistry is a
(06:31):
really important part ofmonitoring water quality, but
it's not the only aspect to lookat. So another way to monitor
water quality is usingbioindicators. So that's using
living organisms to tell usabout what is happening in the
environment.
So this can be done in bothterrestrial and aquatic
(06:52):
environments of people lookingat what organisms are living
there, to get an idea of thehealthiness of the environment.
For aquatic environments, a lotof the time, that is looking at
fish and macroinvertebrates,which are water bugs.
Abigail (07:07):
Aquatic ecosystems always kind of just, like, slipp
my mind, and probably by the endof the season, I won't feel that
way. Right? But I it I'mthinking about, you know, like,
land things too. Like, we have aa c value for certain plants.
Right? I think it's I don't knowif aquatic plants are part of
that scientific valuation. Amy'slike, I don't know either. But I
(07:31):
I'm familiar with them forterrestrial plants and, like,
basically, like, a one to a ten,and ten being, like, that's the
highest level of conservation.Right?
And one being, like, it's kindof aggressive, zero being
nonnative. And so, like, when wehave, like, a land like, a
terrestrial ecosystem and, like,the average C value is pretty
(07:53):
low, that tells us somethingabout, like, the, quality of
that ecosystem. And so it's it'sI'm kind of, like, equating that
to, like, this idea of, like,the the community of
macroinvertebrates that existsthere. Those are kind of telling
us that quality as well. Andit's interesting to think about
that.
Like, we have all these systems,and water just is a little bit
(08:14):
different because it's really,like, the organisms are, like,
enveloped in all of the pieces.Right? Like, there's no
escaping, really. And that Ireally and the the way that they
take in different nutrients andoxygen and things like that
really kind of impacts how howmuch kind of, like,
contamination or things likethat they they take into their
bodies. So it's interesting tothink about.
Hannah (08:39):
Yeah. So when we're looking at the
macroinvertebrates, it's reallysimilar to that. They have been
they're, like, really wellstudied, and they all have all
of the ones that we use asbioindicators have a known
tolerance to pollution. So thenthey're assigned a number based
on that known tolerance. So, ifthey can't live in pollution,
(09:00):
they get a lower number closerto zero like the caddisflies and
mayflies.
But then if they can toleratepollution and they can pretty
much live anywhere, then theyget a higher number, like our
bloodworm midges, our, forRiverWatch, that's our highest,
tolerance value organism. Sothen we basically when we
(09:22):
collect all themacroinvertebrates and see which
ones are there, we can get anidea based on those numbers, how
healthy a water body is.
Abigail (09:30):
That's like golf. The lower the number, the better.
Amy (09:32):
Yeah. I think it's cool too because, you know, we talk a lot
about plants. I think the threeof us on this podcast that are
on here regularly are kindaplant lovers. You know, when I'm
walking around with theforester, we're looking for in
you know, indicator species isgonna show us that, oh, this war
forest is healthy, and plantsstay still. Right?
(09:55):
We can go back out there to theto the woods or to the prairie
or whatever and find that plantagain most of the time. You
know? But then this idea of in astream, thinking of moving, you
know, organisms, thinking, youknow, wildlife, I guess, if you
will. There's probably a alittle bit of a different
(10:15):
procedure to, you know, figureout that water quality or catch,
I guess, catch thoseorganically, things like that.
So I guess tell us a little bitwe talked a little bit about my
macroinvertebrates, and we'llprobably go into them a little
bit more. But overall, wementioned RiverWatch. So talk
(10:36):
about the program and how itrelates to, you know, studying
water quality And maybe some ofits history too. I was involved
with it a really long time agowhen I was in college.
Hannah (10:50):
Yeah. So RiverWatch is a statewide community science
program. So just a littlebackground on community science
first. That is where, thegeneral public or volunteers
come out and help scientistscollect the data. So RiverWatch
is a community science programthat's statewide, and we train
(11:11):
volunteers to collect waterquality data.
So that water quality data lookslike a habitat survey, so that's
where they're looking at, theplants, what sediment is in a
stream, how fast and big thestream is, things like that. And
then they do a biological surveywhere they collect
macroinvertebrates, and thenidentify them and figure out the
(11:34):
our main metric that we use iscalled the macroinvertebrate
biotic index. So that'sbasically an average of all
those tolerance values to get aan average number of what's
going on in there. And a littlebit of background on the program
is we originally started in1995. So this will be our
thirtieth year, our thirtiethanniversary.
(11:56):
It was started by the IllinoisDepartment of Natural Resources
and was originally under a widerprogram called EcoWatch Network,
but they lost funding for it in2004. And so in 2006, National
Great Rivers, took over theprogram and has been running it
(12:16):
since then. So we do have somesites that have been monitored
for ... I think we might haveone or two that have been
monitored for all thirty years,but quite a few sites that have
been monitored for more thantwenty years.
Abigail (12:28):
That's such powerful data to get that kind of long
term because a lot of the timessometimes we go into sites
afterwards to find out, youknow, like, what happened. Oh,
the levels of, you know, certainpollutants are this high. Well,
what was it twenty years ago?Like, what's the difference now?
And if we don't have that datalike, in soil, that's
invaluable.
Right? We have some old soilsamples. There was a project
(12:50):
from from University of Illinoisin which they were doing those
kinds of sampling of, like,hundred year old soil data and
then going back and finding theoriginal sites now. And, like,
to be able to have thatcomparison over time is just
crazy, especially given too,like, this focus on restoring
our waterways and, nutrientreduction or loss reduction and
(13:11):
things like that. Like, are webeing effective in the work that
we're doing, and, what do weneed to do differently? So
twenty year data. Wow. That'sreally great. Thirty year data
in some places.
Amy (13:23):
That is really cool. When you're looking at that data, and
I'm going a little I guess I'mgoing one step further, and
maybe we can go backwards too.But, like, what do you do with
that data? So I guess and wecould talk more. I I feel like
we need to dive deeper into whatcommunity science is, but I
guess my mind is like, okay.Cool. So we have volunteers out
(13:45):
there. They're looking at thisthe the macroinvertebrates.
They're looking at thesestreams. They're sending their
data to you, Hannah. Like andthen what?
So we have so what do you doafter that? Does it go somewhere
else where we're making plansto, you know, figure something
out with the really streams thatwe see that might have some
really bad issues?
Hannah (14:06):
Yeah. So RiverWatch as a program is more of like a data
hub. So we collect all thisdata, and then we give it to
people when they ask for it. So,generally, our data as a whole
is not really being used. Like,we are gonna put some
publications out with it, but interms of, like, policy and stuff
(14:28):
like that, it's not really beingused in that way.
But it's generally used morefor, like, smaller projects. So,
like, if a city wants to do arestoration project, they'll ask
us for our data so they can havebefore data and then after data
or a lot of forest preserves orpark districts. We'll use it for
things like that. And then,like, we have people monitoring
(14:48):
in Midewin, and they use theirdata in Nachusa Grasslands. And
so it's a lot more like smallerprojects that the data is being
used for and compared, but thedata as a whole, we haven't done
that much with yet.
Abigail (15:01):
I mean, these smaller projects, those are usually
projects that don't have thecapacity to gather that data
themselves. Yeah. And then eventoo, like, a unified measurement
across the state, like,everybody's using the same
metrics. I mean, there's a lotof potential there and to, like,
compare you know, if somebodyever wanted to look and say,
(15:24):
like, well, Nachusa is doingthis, and they've been measuring
their water qual like, theirwater quality is measured. And
Midewin is doing this, and theirwater quality is measured in the
same exact way
They can actually do, like, anan apples to apples comparison,
which is so cool. Because a lotof the time, it's, like,
different data collection,right, methods Right. Across
(15:46):
projects. So, yeah, reallyawesome service to science.
Amy (15:51):
That's a good point. I think when I first started back
in the day when I was going toschool and getting ready to go
into my career, you know, Ilearned about different
community science programs, andI was like, oh, no big deal. We
just all go out and do the samething. And then I think I went
somewhere in Chicago, and theywere developing a new community
(16:14):
science program, and I don'teven remember what the program
was. And they talked about howlong it took to develop the
protocols and learn from, youknow, testing it, piloting the
protocol.
Did we get the data that wewanted? Is the data good data?
Is there room for error that wecan't, you know? So do you guys
(16:42):
tweak any of those protocols oror look at that year to year
based on, you know, yourvolunteer feedback and what you
guys see from the data side?
Hannah (16:52):
Yeah. So we try really hard not to make any changes to
the methods since we've beenusing the same methods for the
last thirty years. We don'twanna change that at that at
this point. But what we dochange is our the way we train
people. So we do have a qualityassurance plan, and part of that
plan is 30% of our samples everyyear, get double checked by a
(17:13):
professional with IllinoisNatural History Survey.
And then we compare the accuracyrates from the volunteers. And
so based on the results of that,QA analysis, we will add things
into our training to helppeople, particularly with
identification , themacroinvertebrate
identification, is where, we getthe most errors in our, data. So
(17:38):
we're not too worried about themethods. The methods are not
that hard, but what is harderfor people to learn is the
macroinvertebrateidentification. And we do go
down to a farther level on ourmacroinvertebrate identification
than the programs in The statesaround us, and that is to try to
collect higher quality data.
But then that does leave roomfor more error training people
(18:00):
who do not have a background inthis. To be able to identify
insects is not the easiest thingto do, but it does like, our QA
data is pretty good. We shootfor, like, an 80% accuracy, so
it is working. Yeah. I have acouple of questions. One, I
wanna kinda back up a littlebit. So when we say insects, if
people aren't familiar with, youknow, like, the insects we're
(18:22):
discussing, what, like, what arethese insects? Like, what do
they look like? When I thinkinsect, I think, you know,
flying around a little bit. Whatare what are the insects that
we're studying in, RiverWatch?
Yeah. So macro the termmacroinvertebrates actually
covers worms, crustaceans,insects, and mollusks. I tend to
(18:42):
talk about insects and bugs alot because that's the majority
of what we're looking at, but wealso get those other three, taxa
as well. So for our worms, we'retalking about things like
flatworms and leeches. Ourcrustaceans, we're looking at
things like, isopods, which aresimilar to, like, roly polys on
(19:03):
our land, and crayfish.
And then the mollusks are snailsand mussels. But then when we're
talking about the insects,almost everything that we're
talking about is their larval ortheir nymph phases, so the
younger phases, not the adults.Most of the insects, pretty much
all of them except for thebeetles, will become terrestrial
(19:24):
as adults. So they spend theirlarval stages in the water, and
then they'll come up and molt.And when they become adults,
they're terrestrial.
Abigail (19:32):
I always think that's so cool. I love doing pond dips
with kids and being like, thisis a dragonfly, and its jaw just
flips out. Yeah.
Hannah (19:43):
Yeah. Kids get so excited about
macroinvertebrates.
Amy (19:47):
And, well, I was I was just gonna add, I just remember when
I was learning aboutmacroinvertebrates, you know,
micro versus macro. Right? Somicro, things that we cannot see
without a microscope, but macrobeing, you know, bugs and things
in in the water that we can seewith our own eyes, which makes
it, you know, a lot easier forvolunteers to be able to
(20:10):
identify and work with.
Hannah (20:13):
Yeah. And I do just wanna clarify, they are still
pretty small, but you can seethem without a microscope.
Amy (20:20):
But looking at them underneath the microscope is is
really, really cool. Reallyneat.
Hannah (20:25):
Yeah. Yeah.
Abigail (20:27):
I don't know. I've seen a mayfly, like, size of, like,
my knuckle to my end of mypinky, which I feel like is a
pretty big mayfly. But, yeah,some of them are really I would
love to hear about, like so if aa volunteer is going out and,
doing an assessment, what doesthat look like? Like, what are
they doing out there?
Hannah (20:47):
Yeah. So they work on a 200 foot segment of a stream,
and that is usually sites thatthey pick out for themselves.
But if they need help finding asite, we will also suggest
sites. So when they get outthere, they'll measure out their
site, and they start with thehabitat survey. So they'll, draw
a little site sketch to showwhat their site looks like so
(21:12):
that, when they come back in thefuture, they can see if things
are changing.
And then they'll do the habitatsurvey. So taking the
temperature of the water andlooking at the plants that are
around and then, looking at thecomposition of the sediment of
the stream. And then they'll doa flow measurement, so that is
looking at the the width, thedepth, and the velocity of the
(21:35):
stream. And then they'll markdown the land uses, and then
that's basically the wholehabitat survey.
Abigail (21:41):
Is that through, like, the ping pong ball? Right?
Hannah (21:43):
Yeah. So they'll drop a practice golf ball or a
practice, like, a ping pongball, and they'll measure how
long it takes for it to move 10feet in the water, how long it,
takes to float down in thewater.
Abigail (21:56):
That's cool.
Hannah (21:57):
Yeah. So then the biological survey, they use
what's called a D frame net. Soit is what it sounds like. It
is, like, in the shape of a D,and then there's a net behind
it, and the pole's about fivefeet tall. And they'll put that
into the sediment, and they'llbasically use their feet to kick
up the sediment.
And anything that's gettingknocked loose while they're
(22:17):
kicking around the sediment willflow into the net. And then
they'll put that into a bucket,and then they'll sample a second
spot. And then once they havetheir whole sample, they'll go
through it and pick outbasically anything that's
moving. And for this program, wedo require people to preserve
the macroinvertebrates, so theyget put into isopropyl alcohol,
(22:38):
and then they will use amicroscope to identify them in a
lab.
Abigail (22:42):
Is there any discussion or or, like, I guess, like, data
taken on invasives? Because Iknow, like, they have, like,
rusty crayfish and things likethat.
Hannah (22:50):
Yeah. So we do have a section on the biological data
sheet where they mark down,whether certain species are
present and absent. And sothere's two natives we look for.
We look for fingernail clams andfreshwater mussels, so we have
them mark if those are at theirsites. We don't have them
collect any of those or anythingbecause a lot of them are
threatened or endangered.
And then they'll look for, rustycrayfish, Asian clam, zebra
(23:16):
mussels, and Chinese mysterysnails are the ones that we
currently have people lookingfor.
Amy (23:21):
That's cool. If you were just listening to this, it
sounds like you have to use alot of equipment. So are there
is there ways that volunteerscan get equipment then?
Hannah (23:30):
Yeah. So there it isn't too much equipment that you
need. It's basically a bucket, anet, and then stuff to measure,
like, the flow. But we do have,kit hosts throughout the state,
so you can check out amonitoring kit from one of those
places that hosts it, and thenyou can go out and do your
survey and then return it.
Abigail (23:48):
Right. Cook County, University of Illinois Extension
is a host. So we have one in ourWestchester Extension office in
up here. So, anyway, listeningis like, oh, I wanna do that. We
got the host. So but after youget trained. So Yeah.
Amy (24:07):
Okay. Equipment. So if we wanted to volunteer, Hannah,
like, I guess, what would we do?What is the, like, training
season and then the samplingseason and then, you know, how
does it flow throughout theyear? What would be our first
steps if we wanted to be like,yes. we have a stream that I
(24:27):
know of here in my community,and I'd really like to start
monitoring that. How would theygo about, you know, contacting
you and and starting thatprocess?
Hannah (24:37):
Yeah. So the training workshops are usually held in
March through early May, so theyshould be announced right now.
Amy (24:48):
Alright.
Hannah (24:49):
So a training workshop is currently it is a six to
eight hour day training. Itcosts $50 for adults. Kids are
allowed to attend for free, butthey must attend with an adult.
And, during that trainingworkshop, the first part of the
day will be inside where we'remostly spending the whole time
(25:10):
learning how to identify all themacroinvertebrates. So they get
to look through a microscope,and I believe it's I believe we
teach the volunteers how toidentify 36 different kinds.
And then we'll have a lunchbreak, and then we will go
outside, to a nearby stream anddemonstrate the field methods.
So the afternoon is all aboutbasically just walking through
(25:33):
the survey sheets and how tocollect all the data. And then
once volunteers are trained, themonitoring season, the main part
of it is May and June. So whenyou adopt a site, you only need
to monitor it once per year. Soif you only have one site,
you're only going out once, butsome people will choose to adopt
more than one site so they cango out more than once.
(25:55):
So the main monitoring season isMay and June, and then we have
an optional secondary one thatis September and October. And
that's for if people want tocollect more data on their
streams, they're welcome to dothat. Or if they just really
couldn't get out during thesummer, they can go out in
September and October. And thenwe have open labs in July and
(26:15):
August. So after people collecttheir macroinvertebrate samples
and they leave their site with apreserved sample jar, they can
bring that to our open labs anduse our microscopes.
And then we usually have a staffmember there who can help with
identification.
Abigail (26:30):
And that that's in Alton?
Hannah (26:32):
We'll hold the open labs in the same areas that we do our
training workshops. Yeah. Bothare both are we usually have 10
to 15 spread out through thewhole state.
Abigail (26:41):
Very cool. And you announce your trainings on the
website?
Hannah (26:45):
Yeah. So they'll be on the website. They'll be on our
Facebook page. That's our socialmedia that we use the most
often. They'll be announced inour newsletter, which there's a
sign up for our newsletter onour website as well.
Abigail (26:58):
And, hopefully, we'll include some in the email that
goes out with this podcast.Yeah. Awesome. Well, I guess my
last question for you, is kindof just a little bit of under
trying to understand, I guess,the structure of the project.
Why community science?
Why not researchers doing thisdata collection? They're, like,
(27:19):
professional scientists, Iguess.
Hannah (27:21):
So I'm gonna start with the benefit to the volunteers.
So community science engages thevolunteers with science that I
feel like is not done in otherways and other outreach. Like,
you don't fully understand thescientific process until you're
doing it and getting involvedwith it. And it also helps
(27:43):
create scientific literacy andhelps people stay informed with
their problems. And then it alsohelps form a community between
the volunteers for them toconnect over things they care
about.
But in the terms of benefits forthe scientists, we can reach a
lot more areas and spend a lotmore time, collecting data than
(28:04):
we would if it was just this twoof us, me, and the director of
RiverWatch going out to collectdata. So an example of this is
the Illinois EPA, does theirstatewide stream monitoring, and
they only hit about 15% of thestream miles in Illinois when
they go out to do that. Sothere's really lots of areas of
the state that are not beinglooked at by scientists until
(28:27):
there's already a problem. Sohaving this data from coming
from volunteers before a problemis happening is really helpful.
Abigail (28:36):
I'm just thinking about too, like, how much you
personally learn as a personwho's just taking an assessment
of a site over time. You know, Ilike that there's the optional
fall one as well, because youcan just see how things change.
When I train my masternaturalists, and they're like, I
really wanna, like, be reallygood at, like, identification,
(28:56):
like, the people who walked methrough this prairie or
whatever. And I'm like, they'rereally good at it because they
are at that site.
They assess that site. They'rein the ground looking at it, and
they're looking at the plantsand the animals and identifying
and things like that. And so,like, being part of your
community in that way, part ofyour ecosystem in that way is,
(29:19):
like, really special and allowsyou to learn so much more than,
you know, sitting on a webinarsaying these are the, you know,
18 macroinvertebrates that youcould know. You all bring
examples and samples for peopleto actually look at through the
microscopes, which is so cooland so valuable, and then they
get to actually go see that. Andthen they can say, that's what
my stream has.
(29:40):
Like, they feel this personaltie and connection to the land,
which is really wonderful.
Hannah (29:45):
Yeah. And it's also really beneficial to the
scientists to have thatvolunteer perspective. Since
we're a statewide program, wedon't know what's going on in
all of these communities. So,like, if a volunteer finds
something going on in theirdata, they can already have
ideas. Like, hey. I know thisconstruction project happened
last winter, so could this beaffecting my data? So having
(30:07):
that community perspective isreally helpful when interpreting
the data.
Amy (30:11):
Yeah. Good point. Well and you guys the RiverWatch program
provides such great support too,so you're not just out there
trying to do it all on your own.
I mean, you're out there. You doa lot of it on your own, but
there's also like, if you getstuck, you you know, you guys
have a good safety net, a goodway to help volunteers out if
(30:33):
they, you know, feel intimidatedby, you know, identifying things
on their own. You have,obviously, the pretraining, but
also the support afterwards. Youknow, I'm sure take a picture,
email it, you know, all thoseYeah. Types of things as well.
So that's that's great for avolunteer to feel supported like
that.
(30:53):
Well, is there anything else, Iguess, before we wrap up,
Hannah, is there anything elseyou wanna cover about the
RiverWatch program or just waterquality in general that we
didn't hit on today?
Hannah (31:04):
Yeah. I just wanted to say that, I mean, this whole
podcast, we've been talkingabout how great RiverWatch, but
RiverWatch is only great becauseof our volunteers. Like, we
would be nothing if these peopleweren't giving their time to go
out and collect this data. So Ijust wanna say, especially
coming up with our thirtiethanniversary, how important our
volunteers are to us and howmuch we appreciate them.
Amy (31:27):
I would echo that.
Abigail (31:30):
All of us were like, yes.
Amy (31:32):
Yes. Say it again. Say it again. On the megaphone
Abigail (31:37):
Yeah. At the top of the podcast, we said this. There's
just, like, something specialabout volunteers that, like,
wanna devote themselves to time,their extra time and effort. You
know, we don't have a ton ofextra time in in this world,
when it comes to all the workthat we do. And I just, to take
some of that to devoting tounderstanding the world around
(31:58):
us a little bit more andcontribute to science is really,
really cool.
Amy (32:02):
Mhmm. Agreed. Well, congratulations, Hannah, and
your team on thirty years.That's pretty amazing. And,
really, thank you so much forbeing on our podcast today,
Hannah, and just discussing, youknow, water quality and how we
can be involved and actuallybeing active in, monitoring our
(32:22):
water quality in our communitycommunities.
Like every episode, we end ourepisode with a space called
everyday observation where wehighlight the mundane and the
normal of our environment thatis actually really interesting.
So I'm gonna kick it off, orkick it over there to you,
Abigail. Do you have an everydayobservation that you'd like to
(32:45):
share with us today?
Abigail (32:47):
I do, and it's gonna feel a little out of place
because right now, we'rerecording the week after
Thanksgiving. And so it is, likelike, late fall, early winter
kind of vibes, And, this isgoing to be released in the
spring. So I'm gonna take all ofour listeners back a couple of
months as I explain this. And soI'm in Northern Illinois. My
(33:10):
family lives in CentralIllinois.
And pretty much up here, like,all the leaves were gone. And I
went to Central Illinois, and Iwas like, man, nobody, like,
rakes their leaves here, which,like, I'm not one to be, like,
rake your leaves, but it willcause, like, death of the grass
if you don't rake it more than30% of the grass covered. And so
(33:31):
there were, like, mats ofleaves. And I was talking to my
mom, and I was like, mom, like,does your, like, do your
neighbors just, like, not dothat? And she was like, no.
They all dropped in one daybecause it got so cold. And I
was like, oh, like, that's wildto think about that, like and
also, like, wow. Real big checkon myself for being so judgy.
(33:51):
Right? But I was just thinkingabout it.
I was like, wow. Like, I wonderyou know, I wanna understand
that physiological process alittle bit more as to, like,
when the drop and why the dropand and dropping all at once
versus a few at a time. ChrisEnroth, I believe, in the Good
Growing podcast. Right, Amy? Hereleased one that was just
(34:14):
specifically about, like, whyleaves change color and what
the, like, ecological adaptationand the advantages of that is.
And I, like, just keep thinkingabout that and thinking about
that. So definitely everybodylistening, go check out that
episode about, like, why leaveschange color and why it's
beneficial for them to, like,hold on to them as long as
possible. Really, really neatshort bite of an episode. But it
(34:37):
just kinda made me think and askmyself why all at once when
certain temperatures happen.
Amy (34:43):
Curious. So that's my observation. I like that. I like
that a lot.
Hannah (34:47):
Mine's related. Can I go next?
Amy (34:49):
Go. You go. Yes.
Hannah (34:52):
So mine is also has to do with the leaves just dropping
recently. And I actually reallylike this time of year when the
leaves drop because it is myfavorite thing to see all the
nests in the trees, because youcan't see them whenever the
leaves are there, and thensuddenly the leaves are gone.
And it's like, I didn't know Ihad six nests in this tree right
(35:14):
next to my apartment.
Amy (35:15):
Yeah.
Hannah (35:16):
So that's just generally being able to see those nests
even if there's nobody in them.I think it's really cool to see
the structure of them.
Amy (35:23):
I totally agree with that. in a tree that's in, near me, we
didn't realize there was ahornet nest, up there too that
we were just like, oh my gosh.We didn't realize that was
there. It was so totally hidden.It's way up at the top of the
tree, and we didn't know it wasthere. And then leaves fell and
(35:44):
ta da.
Abigail (35:45):
Yeah. All those squirrel nests.
Amy (35:48):
Yeah.
Abigail (35:48):
I love talking to people who don't know what those
are and be like, no. Those aresquirrel those are not just like
a bunch of, like, leaves thatdidn't fall. Like, that was
intentional there,
Amy (35:56):
and it's cool. Yeah. They're pretty messy, aren't
they?
Abigail (35:59):
They're so messy.
Amy (36:00):
They're like, here here here. Let's just have fun.
Hannah (36:02):
But the inside is different than the outside.
Like, it's not like the insidehas, like, a different material
because that's what they use forthe bedding. So it does have
structure, but, yeah, it justlooks like a pile of leaves.
Amy (36:12):
That's interesting. I'm gonna go down the same path. I
feel like I mean, again, we arein the spring, but I've been
noticing this is just anothernotice I guess, noticing nature
moment that the bark of trees. Idon't know. I'm in this kind of,
like we've we did a treeinventory in our community, and
(36:33):
I've been noticing the bark oftrees.
And it's spring right now whenwe re when we release this
podcast, so probably not a lotof leaves developing quite yet.
But looking at that bark cantell you a lot. And the more and
more I work on just myidentification skills for trees,
(36:53):
the more and more I am justnoticing the bark, the bark, you
know, structure, the barkpatterns, the type of bark, and
then just, you know,categorizing that with, you
know, what species of tree theyare. And just the bark, you can
almost tell. Just tell what typeof tree it is by the bark just
(37:16):
really quickly, a lot of timeswithout having any leaves on.
So, just that continuingpractice that I'm working
through, I guess I'mappreciating more than I've ever
had before just, that barktexture.
Abigail (37:32):
That's a really developed skill set because I
feel like it's all you know,like, when when you initially
before you learn plants,there's, like, this term plant
blindness of, like, I don't Ithey're all just plants. Right?
Amy (37:43):
Right.
Abigail (37:43):
feel like bark is kind of that sense, but, like, it's,
like, the next level up afteryou know how to identify the
leaves. You're like, yeah. Thatof course, that bark's
different. But, like, for me,like, unless it's, like, the
warty bark or, like, the, blackcherry tree.
I, like, super like, people willbe like, of course, that's a
white oak bark. Don't you know?And I'm like, actually, I don't.
(38:03):
Like, I really because it's apractice skill over time to,
like, see those differences andmake them a little more
intuitive. So I'm it's reallycool. I'm glad you're working on
that skill.
Amy (38:14):
Well, it kinda goes back to what you're talking about with
macroinvertebrates and just,like, wanting to be better at
identification ofmacroinvertebrates. It's like
any skill or sport or whateverpractice, practice, practice.
Right? Mhmm. Time you spend withmacroinvertebrates over and over
and over, the more you're like,oh, I got that.
Oh, I got that. And I think anyany identification work, my our
(38:35):
master naturalist over here justdid a a small pilot tree
inventory for our community, andthey were so excited about
putting their identificationskills into practice and into
something that will be helpfulfor our community. And they're
like, I just learned so muchbecause we just kept doing it
over and over and practicing itand, you know, recognizing the
(38:59):
tree species a lot faster thananyway, fun fun stuff. Thank you
again, Hannah, for being with ustoday. We really appreciate you,
and we appreciate your time.
Hannah (39:08):
Yeah. Thank you for having me.
Amy (39:11):
Well, this has been another episode on the Everyday
Environment podcast. Check usout next week where we talk with
Sarah Zack, one of our favoriteguests, and she is going to talk
about new research on emergingcontaminants in our waterways.
Abigail (39:32):
This podcast is a University of Illinois Extension
production, hosted and edited byAbigail Garofalo, Erin Garrett,
and Amy Lefringhouse.
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