Water study fills a need
Originally published: September 9, 2003, The Daily Progress
Before there was ever such a thing as the professional scientist, it was the curious amateur who expanded the boundary of knowledge — finding planets, propounding laws of physics, cataloging species.
To this day, amateurs still discover some amazing things — dangerous asteroids, new plant and animal species, troves of dinosaur bones.
Locally, this human caring and curiosity are being put to work in monitoring water quality. Volunteers are collecting stream samples and compiling data on the tiny creatures within it, to determine how healthy the streams might be. The data are fed into a computer, which sorts and helps make sense of the information.
The project is sponsored by a relatively new group called StreamWatch. Its founder, John Murphy, says the volunteers’ work is “the largest and most intensive aquatic data-gathering effort ever in the Rivanna watershed.”
The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality is relying more and more on volunteers to conduct just such research. “We have limited resources in staff and can’t possibly monitor every stream,” said Joyce Brooks, DEQ’s monitoring coordinator.
Statewide and locally, information on water resources has been sorely lacking.
In the eastern part of Virginia, where broad aquifers feed the water supply and where development is more intense, scientists have made better progress in mapping these underground lakes and supplying data to localities for consideration in development decisions. In western Virginia, where underground water runs through myriad and hard-to-map rock fissures and underground streams, much less is known about the water supply.
Albemarle County has undertaken its own hydrology study in an attempt to determine how much water exists and where. The county is debating requiring new development to show, much earlier in the building process, that sufficient water is available. Currently, that requirement must be met only after a certificate of occupancy is issued — by then, the building is up, many expenses have been incurred and it’s far too late to be finding out that the water supply won’t support the development.
Underground water and surface water, such as the streams being monitored locally, can interconnect; water falling on the surface sinks into the soil to feed underground systems, and rises to the surface again where the terrain creates springs or artesian wells.
Water quantity is generally viewed as more important than quality in weighing development decisions: Will there be enough water to supply that new subdivision or manufacturer? Because of the lack of data on the underground supply in our region, planners are often unable to answer that question, even if they are willing to ask it.
But water quantity and water quality interconnect also. Streams lacking sufficient water supply will also show a decline in quality. That is one of the reasons the work being done by StreamWatch is so significant for the area: It provides one more avenue of data regarding water availability and stream health, in a subject where reliable data are sorely lacking.
Meanwhile, of course, the information is valuable on its own in advancing science as a means of understanding our environment.
The volunteers with StreamWatch are to be commended for their willingness to further the cause of science and the extent of local knowledge.
© 2003 Media General