DES MOINES — The DNR is launching a new, locally-led volunteer water monitoring program to help Iowans better understand their local water quality.
“Volunteer water monitoring is best able to inform local water quality goals if the decision-making and coordination is locally-led,” said Steve Konrady with the DNR’s Water Quality Bureau. “We can help interested communities, watersheds, counties, and regions get started and have an opportunity to take ownership and derive more value from their locally-led volunteer water monitoring programs.”
While volunteer water monitoring has been a component of the DNR since 1998, this program will shift to a locally-led focus to better serve partner communities, organizations and citizens.
The DNR will provide locally-led project leaders with training if needed, and then local volunteers will get trained by and work with those leaders on sampling coordination and data reporting.
The DNR recommends that volunteers submit data collected through these projects to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Water Quality eXchange (WQX), which already houses much of Iowa's previous volunteer monitoring data along with U.S. Geological Survey and other data sources.
Iowans interested in starting their own water monitoring effort locally can visit the volunteer water monitoring site for more information.