Tuesday March 21, was the second water-quality monitoring testing event with our partners, the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields National Historic District (SVB). The project includes sites at the Third Battle of Winchester on Red Bud Run and at Fishers Hill Battlefield on Tumbling Run.

One of SVB’s missions to be a better steward by improving and/or preventing water-quality degradation in the stretches of streams that flow on the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields’ properties.  The project is to measure the stream quality as it flows into the battlefields and then as it leaves to see if the Best Management Practices (BMPs) that have been installed are aiding in achieving healthy water quality.  SVB is currently working with Lord Fairfax Soil and Water Conservation District to secure funding for the installation of additional BMPs.

SVB’s staff have been trained and certified by FOSR’s lab personal in accordance with the FOSR’s “Volunteer Citizen-Scientist Standard Operating Procedure Manual for Water Quality Monitoring”.   They are now official FOSR volunteer citizen scientist water-quality monitors.

The water-quality parameters being tested for in this project include:

• > E. coli enumeration
• > Nutrients: ammonia, ortho phosphate and nitrite-nitrate
• > Instream measurements of dissolved oxygen, pH, temperature
• > Turbidity
• > Conductance

The data from this ongoing effort can be found on the FOSR’s Water Window II, http://waterwindow.fosr.org/. The water-quality monitoring sites are identified as Site ID “SVB01 – SVB05”.

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