The Bitterroot River Health Check program is a locally based, locally funded water quality monitoring program that first stepped into the Bitterroot River last summer as part of the Department of Environmental Quality’s recently renewed efforts at assessing and tracking long term trends in the watershed. Volunteers in the “citizen science” based program took water quality samples from July through September at four sites along the river from the USGS flow gauge south of Darby to the Florence bridge. This summer the organization has expanded its monitoring beyond the mainstem of the river into several tributaries, including Rye Creek, North Rye Creek, Skalkaho Creek, Willow Creek, North Burnt Fork Creek, and Three Mile Creek.
“We had barely gotten our feet wet in the Mainstem Project when I was approached by a couple of people who lived along different tributaries to the river, asking if we could monitor their streams,” said Bitterroot River Health Check program director, Michael Howell. “I told them that, if they could learn all the protocols and agree to commit to being in charge of the monitoring stations on their creek, we might be able to do it.” As soon as word got out, he said, he had residents living along several creeks in the watershed knocking on his door with the same request.
“We realized right away that we had more interest than we could possibly accommodate,” said Howell. The answer, he said, was to produce a rational plan of action to do a limited number of streams that could serve as a backbone for future monitoring projects. The result was the Bitterroot River Tributary 2018 program that was begun this summer.
Howell said the essence of the plan was simple. Each Creekkeeper is a resident who lives along the stream and has “custody” of the sites. They are trained in the scientific protocols, chain of custody requirements, and are responsible for the data gathering along their stream.
The sampling along the tributaries is designed to complement the long-term monitoring project on the mainstem, according to Howell. It is also designed to provide valuable information about the tributaries, most of which have been found to be impaired in terms of water quality in the state’s TMDL assessment of the waterways.
“Although we know, for instance, that most of them are impaired for nutrients,” he said, “we don’t have much information about the actual nutrient loads being dumped into the river by those streams. We have some of that information for a few, but we are after a comprehensive body of knowledge.”
Howell said the plan includes placing a monitoring site at the mouth of the streams to make these determinations and one at the top near the Forest Service boundary. He said this would allow for an assessment of the water quality coming off the forest land and compare it to that at the mouth. This would in turn make it possible to distinguish the nutrient contribution related to forest management practices from the contribution being made below by the agricultural and residential uses.
Howell said the nutrient samples were being analyzed by Energy Laboratories in Helena but that nutrients weren’t the only parameters being studied.
“Thanks to the Rapp Family Foundation we have state of the art instruments for measuring temperature, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, pH, total dissolved solids, and turbidity,” said Howell. “We also have one of the most sophisticated flow measuring devices available on the market. And we’ve got a host of volunteers chomping at the bit to put them to use.”
Howell said that the substantial grant they got from the Rapp Family Foundation was crucial to getting their boots on the ground last year. The Bitterroot River Health Check was awarded the Community Focus Multiple Organizations Grant. The grant is awarded for a project in which several qualifying organizations are acting together in one common project.
Howell said it was a $15,200 grant matched by over $6,000 from partner organizations, individuals and businesses.
“If a big part of the community had not stepped up immediately to embrace the idea of a perpetual water quality monitoring program in the Bitterroot, it would not exist as it does today,” he said.
Howell, who serves as the director of the Bitterroot River Protection Association, said his organization worked for a couple years on developing a water quality monitoring project in the Bitterroot but soon realized that whatever it could accomplish would only be a “drop in the bucket” compared to what was really needed.
He said the Bitterroot River Protection Association began working with DEQ to see how it could get involved in their ongoing monitoring programs in the Clark Fork Basin and then, synchronistically, George Furniss at the Bitterroot College sponsored a “Water Symposium.” BRPA was invited to participate in a panel at the event and describe its plans for a monitoring program.
“The response was overwhelming,” said Howell, “from university professors, from state agency personnel, from other organizations like Trout Unlimited, Bitterrooters for Planning and Fly Fishers of the Bitterroot, from various individuals and even businesses.” He said Big Creek Coffee was the first to jump on the bandwagon and put out a coffee blend called “Aqua Pura” with $1 per bag going to the newly formed cooperative called the Bitterroot River Health Check program.
“We are more than up and running, we are running at full speed,” said Howell. “The River Health Check program has its own office space located at the Professional Plaza at 217 N. 3rd Street, Suite F, in Hamilton. We have a memorandum of understanding with the Bitterroot College providing for our use of their laboratory and storage space in exchange for their use of our equipment for educational purposes.”
“The Bitterroot River is the life blood of the Bitterroot valley and we are going to keep our finger on the pulse,” said Howell.
Bitterrooters for Planning is sponsoring a fundraiser for the Bitterroot River Health Check program on Friday, August 17th from 5:30 to 8 p.m. at Bitterroot Brewing in Hamilton, with appetizers, beer, and information about the project. The public is welcome.
More information about the Bitterroot River Health Check program can be found online at www.bitterrootriver.org, a website sponsored by the Bitterroot River Protection Association.