Citizen Lake Monitoring 2008: A Year in Review

During the 2008 monitoring season:

978 volunteers monitored water quality at over 806 monitoring stations
Over 155 new Secchi volunteers and 110 new chemistry volunteers participated.
Data for 572 monitoring stations were entered online (vs 530 in 2007 and 398 in 2006) into SWIMS by volunteers. The rest submitted data through our touchtone telephone line or on paper. The goal for the coming several years is to work towards 100% of data reported online (data from 63% of participating monitoring stations was entered online in 2007 and 71% in 2008). This shift will decrease mailing costs and staff time, which will allow the Citizen Lake Monitoring network to grow.

Wisconsin lakes are under stress from pollution, loss of habitat and more recently aquatic invasive species (AIS). The state has too few resources to monitor all 15,000 lakes and for decades has depended on citizen volunteers for help. At UW Lakes Extension, the Citizen Volunteer Monitoring Network (CLMN) is working with Clean Boats Clean Waters (CBCW), Wisconsin DNR, Wisconsin Association of Lakes (WAL), county and regional Extension and others in a statewide partnership to prevent the spread of and monitor for AIS. UWEX-Lakes has evolved CLMN training sessions to include AIS monitoring protocols and has taken the lead in training staff (UWEX, County Extension, Basin Educators, RC&D, DNR, etc.) to train volunteers as well as host monitoring workshops. Now, most AIS "new finds" are discovered by trained volunteers and lakes residents allowing earlier detection and rapid response.

CLMN monitors secchi clarity, chemistry, temperature, dissolved oxygen, aquatic plants and AIS (Fig. 3). The goal is to expand the less expensive monitoring while maintaining and slightly expanding the more costly chemistry, temperature, dissolved oxygen and plant monitoring opportunities.

Retention and the term length of volunteers are excellent. Twenty four volunteers are still actively participating after 20 years.

Length of Volunteer Participation (As of 2008) (Over 20 years= 24 (2 %),15-19 years= 83 (8 %),10-14 years= 123 (13 %),5-9 years= 257 (26 %),1-4 years= 491 (50 %))

Length of Lake Participation (As of 2008) (Over 20 years= 86 (13 %),15-19 years= 144 (21 %),10-14 years= 158 (23 %),5-9 years= 155 (23 %),1-4 years= 134 (20 %))

Citizen Lake Monitoring Network - Stations Monitored as of 2008 1986= 127,1987= 197,1988= 225,1989= 287,1990= 339,1991= 387,1992= 443,1993= 522,1994= 564,1995= 643,1996= 636,1997= 629,1998= 607,1999= 601,2000= 627,2001= 679,2002= 674,2003= 694,2004= 698,2005= 795,2006= 798,2007= 856,2008= 806)

Citizen Lake Monitoring Network - Volunteer Participation as of 2008 1986= 138,1987= 203,1988= 236,1989= 269,1990= 347,1991= 381,1992= 418,1993= 536,1994= 558,1995= 709,1996= 743,1997= 687,1998= 653,1999= 688,2000= 705,2001= 774,2002= 784,2003= 797,2004= 795,2005= 849,2006= 832,2007= 962,2008= 978)

According to the longer term data, water quality on a majority of lakes is stable. On some lakes water quality has improved and sadly on a few, water quality has declined. To assure collection of accurate data, quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) tests were done in 2008. Randomly selected volunteers (representing about 10% of the total number of stations monitored for chemistry) collected field blanks and duplicates during their July or August sampling event to help detect any analytical problems during sampling, transport and lab analysis.

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