Educating the Public 



Citizen volunteers provide a valuable link to the local community. 

 The "Adopt-A-Stream" program, established in the Pacific 

 Northwest to promote environmental education and stream enhan- 

 cement, provides a good example of public education through 

 volunteer monitoring. Volunteers participate in the restoration of 

 adopted streams to their original condition. Projects like "Adopt-A- 

 Stream" promote the concept of stewardship for the resource being 

 monitored. Such programs also help to instill a conservation ethic 

 in local communities. 



Citizen monitoring can provide data for special research projects, 

 such as shoreline cleanups, ground-truthing of submerged aquatic 

 vegetation, wetland inventories, and other surveys. Volunteers can 

 collect samples in remote locations at frequent intervals. 



EPA's Office of t\/larine and Estuarine Protection and Office of 

 Water Regulations and Standards are jointly developing a detailed 

 manual for citizen monitoring program managers. The manual will 

 address how to do the following: 



• Plan a citizen monitoring program. 



• Develop a quality control/quality assurance plan. 



• Raise money to support the program. 



• Train volunteers. 



• Select sampling equipment. 



• Select parameters to measure. 



• Develop a data management system. 



For additional assistance, some citizen monitoring programs 

 produce newsletters that are available to interested individuals. A 

 list of the existing programs is provided in the Directory of National 

 Citizen Volunteer Environmental Monitoring Programs, which is 

 updated annually. Contact OMEP for more information or to receive 

 a copy of these publications. 



Providing Data for Research 



Citizen IVIonitoring 

 Manual 



F7 



