WMA 5 Ambassador Update

Freshwater Biological Assessment Trainings in the Works

 

By Nicholas Vos-Wein

 

It has only been four months since I started my year of service with AmeriCorps and I must say that I couldn’t be more pleased.

 

School Presentations

I was a little tentative at first, since my formal education was in environmental chemistry and my current position involves mostly teaching and public speaking. One of my responsibilities as a Watershed Ambassador is to visit schools within Watershed Management Area 5 (WMA5) and explain the concept of a watershed. Although I was nervous going in, about five minutes into my first presentation I felt right at home. I now realize my science background gives me an advantage when explaining such concepts as the water cycle, point vs. non-point source pollution and stream ecology. So far I have reached more than 300 students within WMA5, as well as a number of students from the surrounding areas.

 

In the coming months, I will be appearing at Super Science Saturday in Ridgewood, the New Jersey Envirothon competition in Branchville as well as school presentations in Bayonne, Fort Lee and Hoboken. I will also play an integral role in the Urban Fishing Program this spring, a four-day program that the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) and Hackensack Riverkeeper started in 1996. The program teaches kids about watershed stewardship, responsible fishing, and the hazards of eating contaminated seafood.

 

Water Quality Assessments

Another component of my job is conducting both visual and biological assessments of local waterways (formerly called River Assessment Teams or RATs, and Biological Assessment Teams or BATs), to identify sources of pollution and areas in need of restoration. Working with the NJDEP’s Division of Watershed Management on the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) project (see Hackensack Tidelines Fall 2002), I am concentrating my efforts on stream segments that are impaired (do not meet the TMDL requirements) for fecal coliform bacteria. From what I have observed, it appears that Canada geese are the source of most of the fecal contamination that is entering our waterways. As part of the new stormwater regulations, towns that don’t already have an ordinance against feeding waterfowl will be required to adopt one. (For more information on the new regulations, visit www.njstormwater.org.)  Please don’t feed the geese!

 

Community Projects

This spring and summer I plan to organize various events aimed at getting volunteers out and raising awareness about water-related issues. Among the events I am considering are river cleanups, storm drain marking projects (you may have noticed the markers that say “No dumping, Drains to your river”) and volunteer stream monitoring days. I am currently working with a number of local teachers, planning biological assessment trainings. I will take groups out and teach them how to sample and identify the benthic macroinvertebrates that live in freshwater streams, and then rate the stream based on what we find. Healthy streams generally have high species diversity, including some pollution-sensitive species such as stoneflies, mayflies and caddisflies. I also intend to hold at least three open biological assessment trainings for anyone who is interested. If you, or anyone you know, would like to learn more about these fun little critters, please contact me via email at ambassador@hackensackriverkeeper.org.

 

In closing, I’d like to thank everyone at Hackensack Riverkeeper for welcoming me with open arms. Being the first male ambassador to work in WMA5 I know some of the guys were wondering if I would be up to the challenge, but after working in the office for a few weeks, I felt like part of the team. Working with such a dedicated group of people and seeing the things they do and the influence they have has made me rethink my long-term goals.