Join experienced water guardians Dot and Mike as they conduct their monthly survey of the Standle Stream and Westford Stream, to the west of Wellington in Somerset. Dot and Mike are fellow members of Transition Town Wellington Water Guardians group. Many of us in the group are volunteer citizen scientists testing the water quality in the rivers and streams near us. Managed by the Westcountry Rivers Trust, volunteers visit the same site/s each month to make observations of the current condition of the waterway, report any blockages or problems, note the wildlife and any invasive species. We take samples of river water that we test for phosphates, total dissolved solids (all the potential pollutants that dissolve in water), turbidity (the opposite of clarity) and temperature.
It’s a bit like the river getting a monthly check up with their community nurse. It doesn’t cover everything – perhaps not as much as we would like – for example we can’t test for the kinds of bacteria that make swimmers sick, but it gives an overview of trends and spikes once you have an archive from over the months and years.
