Menu

Erie County Farm Bureau will hold a water quality training session for its board, committee chairs, Advisory Councils and the Erie County Soil and Water Board. Erie County Farm Bureau’s agricultural ecology co-chair and Erie County SWCD’s urban stream specialist Tim White will lead the training, which will be held June 24 at Mill Hollow in Vermillion. The group will venture into the Vermillion River to conduct macro invertebrate sampling, along with learning about water quality and watersheds.

White said he plans to tell the group about the hows and whys of stream monitoring. He said sampling macro invertebrates will give a good indication on stream health and water quality. White also will touch upon physical and chemical stream monitoring. He said this training will help many come up with solutions to possible problems on their property.

"We want people to look at the environment around them. By recognizing threats to the water, we can use conservation methods such as grass waterways to fix the problems," White said. "They will see how land use can and does indeed affect the water quality and the watersheds."

White said Erie County Farm Bureau may do another training in the future for all members. "Eventually, we’d like for this to be a county-wide training. Having that many people monitoring the waterways would really help to keep the quality of our water."

Information on monitoring waterways also will be distributed to the participants.