The Conservation Commission
is grateful to the many Town of Monroe residents that have
granted permission to access their lands for stream
analysis. Property owners are notified in advance
of a Streamwalk and provided an opportunity to
deny access to the Earth Team Volunteers, who are
covered by property, liability and workers compensation
and disability insurance through a policy
provided by the U. S. Department of Agriculture
Natural Resource Conservation Service.
WHAT
DOES IT MEAN TO BE AN “EARTH TEAM VOLUNTEER”?
Earth Team Volunteers come from all walks of life
and volunteer their time and expertise. They are provided education
and training by members of the Town of Monroe Conservation Commission
utilizing a program developed by the Lower Hudson Coalition of Conservation
Districts. The free two-hour course focuses on stream safety and the
appropriate techniques of streamwalking. Volunteers must be 14 years
of age or over and upon course completion they are able to participate
in streamwalks that identify habitat and evaluate the health/condition
of streams, monitor changes and participate in stream restoration
projects. Click here to see “"
What Kind of Data We Collect?”
Earth Team Volunteers walk a 400' segment
of a water-body and rate twelve (12) characteristics:
1. Channel Condition 5.
Water Appearance
9. Pools
2. Hydrology
6. Nutrient Enrichment
10. Invertebrate
Habitat
3. Riparian Zone
7. Barriers to Fish Movement 11. Canopy Cover
4. Bank Stability 8.
In Stream Fish Cover
12. Embededness
If a specific spot is found to
be “impaired,” e.g. there is a dam or storm drain pipe, then an additional
evaluation is done. Ph is also measured and water samples are collected
and sent for laboratory analysis of chloride content. In addition,
stream width and depth measurements are taken at the beginning and
at each 100' interval of the segment.
If you are interested in learning more about the
program, recommending streams for analysis or signing-up to be notified
of future Streamwalk training, you may contact us at mccswp@gmail.com
or by sending your name, address and email number to:
Monroe Conservation Commission, 11 Stage Road, Monroe, New York 10950.
In order to improve a rough visualization
of the stream segment rankings, an “Overall” color ranking system
has been developed that denotes segments as Red – for segment scores
less than 6.1; Green – for segment scores between 6.2 - 7.1; Light
Blue – for segment scores between 7.2 - 8.1; and, Dark Blue – for
segment scores between 8.2 - 9.1. Future Streamwalk Program remediation
projects will concentrate on stream segments scoring in the Red.
Additionally, here is a Data Dictionary of the
data field descriptions:
SEGNO
MCC Segment No.
NOTES
Stream Name/Description
GISID
GIS Stream Segment Identifier
DATEO
Date of Original Survey
CHANNEL
Channel Condition
HYDR
Hydrology
- flooding frequency
RIPZONE
Riparian Zone Vegetation Condition
BANKSTB
Stream Bank Stability
WTRAPP
Water Appearance: color, turbidity
NUTR
Nutrient Enrichment\Plant-Algae
Growth
BARRIER
Barriers to Fish Movement
ISFC
In Stream Fish
Cover
POOLS
Pool Presence, Depth
INVTHAB
Insect and macro-invertebrate habitat
CANOP
Tree Cover %
EMBED
Percent embeddedness of cobbles &
gravel (where riffles are present)
OVERALL
Overall Combined Score
XCOORD
GPS Coordinate, UTM Zone 18, NAD-83, meters of easting\westing (longitude)
YCOORD
GPS Coordinate, UTM Zone 18, NAD-83, meters of northing\southing (latitude)
PICURL1
URL link to online picture #1 of the segment
PICURL2
URL link to online picture #2 of the segment
PICURL3
URL link to online picture #3 of the segment
SEGID
Unique segment identifier code (stream segment ID\date\segment sequence)
CONTACT
US & TRAINING SIGN-UP
If you are interested in learning more about the
program, recommending streams for analysis or signing-up to be notified
of future Streamwalk training, you may contact us at mccswp@gmail.com
or by sending your name, address and email number to: Monroe
Conservation Commission, 11 Stage Road, Monroe, New York 10950.
