A secchi disk is lowered into a lake to measure water clairty. Photo: Velo Steve via Flickr.
Raise your secchi disks and get out the thermistor–it’s lake monitoring season and you can be the scientist.
The Michigan Clean Water Corps is recruiting volunteers to monitor the quality of the state’s inland lakes.
Secchi disks gauge water clarity–a major lake health indicator. Thermistors measure water temperature. Volunteers also sample native and exotic aquatic plants at different depths, measure dissolved oxygen and collect algae and water samples for chlorophyll and phosphorus tests.
The organization’s Cooperative Lakes Monitoring Program is the second oldest volunteer monitoring program in the country and has operated for more than 35 years.
Other Great Lakes states have similar citizen lake monitoring program. Look for them on the Environmental Protection Agency’s website under Volunteer Monitoring in Region 5.