The Alpine Watershed Group's volunteer monitoring program is important for providing data that can be used to examine changes over time to water quality, habitat, and general watershed conditions.  The data allows us to accurately measure the success or failure of various landuse practices in protecting the quality of our waters.

View the current sites where our volunteer monitors collect the water quality data. 

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Program Objectives

• Enrich the understanding of Alpine County residents to issues affecting water quality and habitat conditions within the watersheds.
• Identify potential water quality and habitat concerns
• Provide useful data for decision makers and the public

Chemical and Physical Conditions

The Alpine Watershed Group currently monitors eight sites within the Upper Carson River Watershed.  We would like to expand our efforts to monitor more sites on the Carson River and other watersheds within the county. Residents of Bear Valley and Kirkwood are encouraged to participate.  Contact Sarah Green at watershed@alpinecountyca.gov if you are interested in learning more about volunteer citizen monitoring.

Take a pictorial tour of our monitored sites with Google Picasa.

 click here

 Biological Conditions

 The Alpine Watershed Group has established a Volunteer Bioassessment Program on Markleeville Creek. In the near future we will be hosting trainings for volunteers on the California Stream Bioassessment Procedure.

What is a Bioassessment? Biological assessments or Bioassessment is the monitoring of biological communities in addition to the monitoring of chemical and physical conditions.  Bioassessments are important tools for measuring the integrity of our streams and rivers and assessing the effectiveness of our restoration efforts.  Macroinvertebrates are often used as indicators in bioassessments. Macroinvertebrates are indicator species of the health of our waters and watersheds because their tolerances of pollution or other disturbances vary amongst the different families.  The diversity and type of macroinvertebrates present or not present in a stream can indicate sedimentation, chemical contaminants, and excess nutrients.  They can also help in identifying other sources of pollution including wastewater discharge, mineral mining wastes, road surface discharge, and inadequate forestry and grazing practices.  Bioassessments can detect pollutants and disturbances that can be overlooked with other types of monitoring.