Volunteer Stream Monitoring Program seeks volunteers

 

Want to learn more about a nearby stream or river? Do you care about how clean the waters around you are? Do you like bugs?

If you answered yes to any of the above, you might want to join a MiCorps Volunteer Stream Monitoring event.

Local MiCorps groups are always searching for more volunteers. To get involved, find a stream monitoring group near you and ask how you can help. Monitoring events typically occur in May and October and are available for all ages. Check Michigan.gov/MiCorpsEvents for some spring events near you.

The MiCorps Volunteer Stream Monitoring Program (VSMP) provides grants, resources, and training to enable nonprofits to engage volunteers in stream water quality and habitat monitoring through aquatic macroinvertebrate surveys and physical habitat assessments.

Aquatic macroinvertebrates are insects and other small animals without backbones that live in our streams and rivers. This includes dragonflies, damselflies, mayflies, stoneflies, snails, crayfish, and more.

These creatures are excellent indicators of water quality, because some macroinvertebrates are more tolerant to pollution than others. The types and abundance of macroinvertebrates found in a stream can be used to calculate a Water Quality Rating.

Currently, almost 30 VSMP groups statewide engage more than 1,000 volunteers a year.

Since 2005, macroinvertebrate communities and stream habitat conditions have been evaluated at 820 stations and entered into the MiCorps database. Several stations are repeatedly sampled twice a year, so there are more than 12,000 individual samples in the database.

These data are used locally by watershed groups that collect them to better understand the ecological health of the rivers and streams they strive to protect.

EGLE staff use the information as a screening tool when planning annual watershed monitoring plans to assess water quality in Michigan’s water bodies.

A consistently low Water Quality Rating for a stream or river can alert EGLE staff that more investigation may be needed.